The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove - By Christopher Moore Page 0,55

then waited. A minute passed before Joseph Leander opened the door. He was wearing paint-spattered corduroys and an old cardigan sweater that looked like it had been pulled out of the trash a dozen times. Obviously not the sort of attire that Bess Leander would have allowed in her home.

"Constable Crowe." Leander was not smiling. "What can I do for you?"

"If you have a minute, I'd like to talk to you. May I come in?"

"I suppose," Leander said. He stepped away from the door and Theo ducked in. "I just made some coffee. Would you like some?"

"No thanks. I'm on duty." Cops are supposed to say that, Theo thought.

"It's coffee."

"Oh, right, sure. Milk and sugar please."

The living room had bare pine plank floors and rag rugs. An antique pew bench took the place of a sofa, two Shaker chairs and a galvanized milk can with a padded cushion on the top provided the other seating. Three antique butter churns stood in the corners of the room. But for a new thirty-six-inch Sony by the fireplace, it could have been the living room of a seventeenth-century family (a family with very high cholesterol from all that butter).

Joseph Leander returned to the living room and handed Theo a hand-thrown stoneware mug. The coffee was the color of butterscotch and tasted of cinnamon. "Thanks," Theo said. "New TV?" He nodded to the Sony.

Leander sat across from Theo on the milk can. "Yes, I got it for the girls. PBS and so forth. Bess never approved of television."

"And so you killed her!"

Leander sprayed a mouthful of coffee on the rug. "What?"

Theo took a sip of his coffee while Leander stared at him, wide-eyed. Maybe he'd been a bit too abrupt. Fall back, regroup. "So did you get cable? Reception is horrible in Pine Cove without cable. It's the hills, I think."

Leander blinked furiously and did a triple-take on Theo. "What are you talking about?"

"I saw the coroner's report on your wife, Joseph. She didn't die from hanging."

"You're insane. You were there." Leander stood and took the mug out of Theo's hands. "I won't listen to this. You can go now, Constable." Leander stepped back and waited.

Theo stood. He wasn't very good at confrontation, he was a peace officer. This was too hard. He pushed himself. "Was it the affair with Betsy? Did Bess catch you?"

Veins were beginning to show on Leander's bald pate. "I just started seeing Betsy. I loved my wife and I resent you doing this to her memory. You're not supposed to do this. You're not even a real cop. Now get out of my house."

"Your wife was a good woman. A little weird, but good."

Leander set the coffee mugs down on a butter churn, went to the front door, and pulled it open. "Go." He waved Theo toward the door.

"I'm going, Joseph. But I'll be back." Theo stepped outside.

Leander's face had gone completely red. "No, you won't."

"Oh, I think I will," Theo said, feeling very much like a second grader in a playground argument.

"Don't fuck with me, Crowe," Leander spat. "You have no idea what you're doing." He slammed the door in Theo's face.

"Do too," Theo said.

Seventeen

Molly

Molly had always wondered about American women's fascination with bad boys. There seemed to be some sort of logic-defying attraction to the guy who rode a motorcycle and had a tattoo, a gun in the glove compart-ment, or a snifter of cocaine on the coffee table. In her acting days, she'd even been involved with a couple of them herself, but this was the first one who actually, well, ate people. Women always felt that they could reform a guy. How else could you explain the numerous proposals of marriage received by captured serial killers? That one was a bit too much even for Molly, and she took comfort in the fact that no matter how crazy she had gotten, she'd never been tempted to marry a guy who made a habit of strangling his dates.

American mothers programmed their daughters to believe that they could make everything better. Why else was she leading a hundred-foot monster down a creek bed in broad daylight?

Fortunately, the creek bed was lined in most places by a heavy growth of willow trees, and as Steve moved over the rocks, his great body changed color and texture to match his surroundings until he looked like nothing more than a trick of the light, like heat rising off blacktop.

Molly made him stay under cover as they approached the Cypress Street