Hostage

17

Friday, 11:36 P.M.

Pearblossom, California

MIKKELSON AND DREYER

It was late when Mikkelson and Dreyer found Krupchek’s trailer, a thirty-foot Caravan split at the seams, waiting for them at the end of a paved road in Pearblossom, a farm community of fruit orchards and day workers in the low foothills at the base of the Antelope Valley. That was Mikkelson’s notion when they finally found the damned place, that it was waiting, wide, flat, and dusty, the way a desert toad waits for a bug.

Dreyer swiveled the passenger-side floodlight and lit up the place. Somewhere under the dust, it was pale blue going to rust.

Dreyer, more cautious by nature, said, “You think we should wait for Palmdale?”

Mikkelson, anxious to get inside, said, “Why’d we go to the trouble of getting the warrant, if we’re gonna wait? We don’t have to wait. Leave the light.”

Krupchek’s road ran the gut of a shallow canyon between two low ridges. No streetlights, no cable TV, no nothing out here; they had phone service and power, but that was about it; the sun went down, it was black.

Mikkelson, tall and athletic, behind the wheel because she got carsick when Dreyer drove, got out first. Dreyer, short and square, came up beside her, the rocky soil crunching. Both had their Maglites. They stood there, staring at the trailer, both a little bit nervous.

“You think anyone is home?”

“We’ll find out.”

“You think that’s his car?”

“We’ll run the tag when we finish inside.”

An eighties-era Toyota Camry, itself dusty and speckled with rust, sat outside the darkened trailer.

They were late getting here, having gone to the Rooneys’ apartment first, where they’d had to dick around with his landlord and the goofy woman who lived above them, the stupid cow asking over and over if she was going to be on the news. Mikkelson had wanted to slap her. When they had finally come up to Pearblossom, finding the trailer had been a bitch because it was dark and these little roads weren’t marked, most of them, so they’d had to stop to ask directions three times. The last stop, a Mexican up from Zacatecas who worked for rich women as a stable groom, turned out to live next door. Here’s the Mexican, a small man with his small wife and six or seven small children, saying that Krupchek kept to himself, never any sounds, never any trouble, had only spoken with Krupchek the one time someone had left a heart carved of bone on their step, the Mexican walking over that evening to ask if it was Krupchek, Krupchek saying no, then closing the door. No help there.

Mikkelson said, “Let’s go.”

They approached the trailer, then walked from end to end, just looking. It was like they didn’t want to touch it, these creepy feelings you get.

Dreyer said, “How do we get in? We look for a key or something?”

“I don’t know.”

Here they had the warrant, but how did they get in? They hadn’t thought of that.

Mikkelson rapped on the door with her Maglite, calling, “Anyone in there? This is the police.”

She did that twice, getting no answer, then tried the door, one of those flimsy knobs that was tougher than it looked. It was locked.

“We could jimmy it, I guess.”

“Maybe we should try to find the landlord, have him open it.”

The Mexican had told them that all the land along the road was owned by a man named Brennert, who rented out the properties, mostly to migrant farmworkers.

“Shit, that’ll take forever. We’ll just pop the damned thing.”

Dreyer made a dogged face, unhappy.

“I don’t want to pay for breaking it.”

“We’ve got the warrant, we’re not going to have to pay.”

“You know the bastard might sue, not Krupchek but Brennert. You know how people are.”

“Oh, hell.”

Dreyer could be like that. He was terrified of getting sued. They talked about it all the time, how police officers were sued right and left these days just for doing their jobs, Dreyer hatching plans to put everything in his wife’s name to protect it from the lawyers.

Mikkelson got the tire iron from their trunk, wedged it in the jamb by the knob, and popped the door. She put her back into it because these damned things were always stronger than they looked.

A smell like simmering mustard greens rolled out at them.

“Jesus, does this guy ever wash?”

Mikkelson leaned inside, feeling full of herself because this was the first time she had ever broken into a property with the full force of the law behind her and it felt pretty damned cool.

“Anyone home? Knock, knock, knock, it’s your friendly neighborhood police.”

“Cut the crap.”

“Relax. There’s no one in here.”

Mikkelson found the light switch and stepped inside. The interior of the trailer was dingy and cramped with tattered furniture in listless colors, stifling with accumulated heat.

Dreyer said, “Well, okay, now what?”

But it was Dreyer who saw them first, having turned to the kitchen, Dreyer saying, “Jesus, look at that.”

It would have been funny except there were so many of them; five or six boxes, maybe, or even ten or twelve, and Mikkelson would have laughed, making a joke, but the overwhelming sight of so many screamed insanity in a way that made her cringe. Later, the Sheriff’s forensics people would count: seven hundred sixteen Count Chocula boxes, empty, flattened, and folded, all neatly bound with cord, stacked against the walls and on the kitchen counters and in the cupboards in great teetering towers, each box mutilated in exactly the same way, a single cigarette burn, charred and black, on the point of Count Chocula’s nose. They would understand the burns later, too.

Dreyer, not getting the same creepy read as Mikkelson, went for the joke.

“You think he got something good for all these box tops?”

“Put on your gloves.”

“What?”

“The gloves. Let’s be careful here.”

“It’s cereal, for chrissake.”

“Just put on the gloves.”

“You think he ate it?”

“What?”

“All this cereal. You think he eats it? Maybe he just scrounges for the boxes. There must be a giveaway, you know, a contest.”

The Caravan was cut into three sections, the kitchen to their right, the living room where they entered, the bedroom to their left, all of it cramped and claustrophobic, littered with free newspapers, Jack-in-the-Box wrappers, soiled clothes, and beer cans; the little kitchen with a tiny sink, an electric range, a half-size refrigerator.

Mikkelson, ignoring Dreyer’s speculations, moved left to the bedroom, pulling on the vinyl disposable gloves, wondering about the smell. At the door, she lit up the bed with her Maglite, saw stained sheets in a rumpled mess, paper and clothes on the floor, and the jars.

“Dreyer, I think we should call.”

Dreyer stepped up behind, his own light beam dancing into the room.

“Shit. What is that?” Dreyer’s voice was hushed.

Mikkelson stepped in, holding out her light. Gallon-size glass jars lined the walls, jars that you get when you buy the big pickles in one of those discount stores, lining the walls, stacked to windows that were latched tight to hold out the air. Shapes floated in the jars, suspended in yellow fluid. Some of the jars were so jammed with fleshy shapes there was almost no fluid.

“Goddamn. I think it’s rats.”

“Jesus.”

Mikkelson squatted for a better look, wanting to cover her mouth, maybe put on a gas mask or something so she wouldn’t have to breathe the fetid air.

“Shit, it’s squirrels. He’s got squirrels in here.”

“Fuck this. I’m calling.”

Dreyer left, keying his radio as he fled to the safer night air.

Mikkelson backed out of the room, stood in the door, thinking what to do. She knew she should go through Krupchek’s things, look for identifying information, family phone numbers, things like that which might help Talley at the scene. She went back to the kitchen, looking for the phone, figuring to find what she needed there.

Mikkelson, thoroughly creeped out, stood by the phone but stared at the oven. She had this creepy feeling, she would later say, that’s all there was to it; the smell, the squirrels, all those mutilated boxes. She took a deep breath as if she were about to plunge into cold water and jerked open the oven.

More Count Chocula.

Mikkelson laughed at herself. Ha ha, like what else did she expect to find?

Tension now gone, she opened the cupboards, one after the other, all with Count Chocula, bound and burned. She returned to the phone, but hesitated again, then found herself standing at the refrigerator.

Outside, Dreyer called, “You coming out?”

“I’m okay.”

“Wait out here. The Sheriffs are sending detectives.”

“Dreyer?”

“What?”

“You ever notice, a refrigerator is like a white coffin standing on end?”

“Jesus, would you just come out?”

The refrigerator came open without effort, empty and strangely clean against the squalor of the trailer, no soda, no beer, no leftovers, just white enamel that had been lovingly polished. This refrigerator, Mikkelson would later testify, was the cleanest thing in the trailer.

A thin metal door was set in the top of the box; the freezer. Her hand had a mind of its own, reaching out, pulling the door. Her first thought was that it was a cabbage, wrapped in foil and Saran Wrap. She stared at it, stared hard, then closed the doors, never once, not once, tempted to touch that thing in the freezer.

Mikkelson left the trailer to wait with Dreyer in the hot night air, the two of them saying nothing, waiting for the Sheriffs, Mikkelson thinking, Let them touch it.