The Girls He Adored

42

Pender's resolve lasted a good forty-five seconds-he was still in the elevator when the slide show began. He saw Aletha Winkle and Terry Jervis alive; he saw them on the bed, shamed and butchered, then posed in a humiliating tableau. He saw the faces of the strawberry blonds. He saw his mother's face-how proud she'd been of him when he joined the bureau. A picture of her Eddie receiving a citation from Judge Sessions had gone with her to the nursing home where she died.

And lastly, he saw his father walking toward him in his dress blues, medallions gleaming. Quitters never win and Penders never quit. Then the elevator doors opened, and Pender caught sight of a big bald bozo in a loud sport jacket and crumpled hat reflected in the glass doors of the building entrance.

“Special Agent E. L. Pender reporting for duty, sir,” he said aloud, then saluted the comical figure in the glass the way his father had taught him-hand straight as a blade, upper arm parallel to the ground, and snap it off, boy, snap it off.

Where to?

That was the first question for Pender. No longer welcome in Monterey, he thought about jumping in the rented Toyota and driving north to Mendocino. But there was nothing he could do up there that wasn't already being done. Same for Santa Barbara, home of Paula Ann Wisniewski, the most recent strawberry blond-the L.A. field office would have agents all over Santa Barbara.

So his next question was, What do I know that nobody else knows? What do I have to bring to the party?

At the moment, he knew from listening to the tapes that the killer had multiple personalities, that he used the names Max, Christopher, and Lyssy, and that he'd been abused as a child. But within hours, transcriptions of the tapes would be available to every investigator, and the bureau would begin investigating DID patients, hospital records, DID support groups, as well as searching the national crime databases for name concurrences. (It occurred to Pender that Pastor would almost certainly take credit for finding the tapes; he was surprised to note that he didn't particularly care.)

So what other information did Pender have? He asked himself what salient facts would have gone into that report that Agent Pastor had requested, and was now about as likely to get as he was a blow job from the attorney general.

Easy: Dallas. The Sleep-Tite motel where you could call for a number-one girl to make boom-boom. A number-one girl named… what was it… think back… no, go back… pussy's pussy… call the desk… tightest little piece I ever… Ann something.. Ann Tran!

Where to? Suddenly Pender had the answer to his first question.