Silent Victim - C. E. Lawrence [59]
But Chuck wasn’t reading her signals. “Yeah—sorry about that,” he said distractedly. “I’ll see you tonight, okay?”
She stood there, hands at her sides, her thin body twitching with irritation—if she were a cat, Lee thought, she’d be flicking her tail. She was used to getting what she wanted, especially with men, and it must gall her no end to strike out twice in just a few minutes. She looked at Lee, displeasure that he saw her annoyance and knew what it was about showing on her perfectly painted face.
“Didn’t you have a phone call to make?” she said, trying to sound solicitous, but it came out as a kind of snarl.
“It can wait,” Lee replied cheerfully. Maybe he was enjoying her defeat a little too much, but he didn’t care.
She examined her French-manicured nails. Then, seeing she had lost, she picked up her tiny red designer clutch bag and swished toward the door. “Fine,” she said to Chuck in a tight voice. “See you tonight.”
“Okay,” Chuck mumbled, too involved in his search to notice her mood. Lee figured there would be hell to pay somewhere along the line—maybe for Chuck, maybe for him—but it was worth it to him to win even this small victory.
“You had something you wanted to show me?” Lee said after she had gone.
“Yeah,” Chuck said, “some papers. I was sure I left them right here.”
Lee had the unpleasant thought that Susan might have moved them, or even taken them, but he didn’t suppose even she would do something like that. Chuck pressed a button on this intercom and said loudly, “Ruggles, can you come in here?”
The door opened to admit the sergeant, who stood meekly awaiting orders.
“Ruggles, did you see those papers I brought in earlier today?” Chuck asked.
Ruggles went over to the corner of the room, picked up a soft leather briefcase leaning against the wall, opened it, and pulled out a handful of papers.
“Is this what you’re looking for, sir?” he asked. “I saw you stuff them in there before you were called away.”
“Ah—well done!” Chuck crowed, taking them. “What would I do without you, Ruggles?”
“I expect you’d get along just fine, sir,” Ruggles said modestly. “Will that be all, then?”
“Yes—thanks very much,” Chuck said, and Ruggles disappeared as quietly as he had come.
“Amazing man,” Chuck said, looking after him. “He’s always there when you need him—sort of spooky, really.”
“Like Judith Anderson in Rebecca—whenever Joan Fontaine looks up, she’s standing there, but we never see her enter the room.”
Morton smiled. “Well, Ruggles isn’t that creepy, I hope.”
“No,” said Lee. “What was it you were going to show me?”
“This,” Chuck replied, thrusting the papers at him.
It was an arrest record of one George Favreau, a Peeping Tom who had finally been caught stealing women’s underwear from laundry lines.
“Could this be our guy?” Chuck asked.
Lee studied the arrest report. Favreau’s escapades read more like a Ben Stiller comedy than the exploits of a serial killer.
According to his file, George Lamont Favreau was a
Peeping Tom who liked to steal women’s underwear from laundry lines in his suburban Jersey neighborhood. He had the misfortune to be caught when a sprinkler system had gone off, frightening him so much that he tripped on it and sprained his ankle. The occupants of the house had spotted him writhing on their lawn and called the police. The man of the house held a .45 to his head while the police were on their way, frightening poor Favreau so much that he peed in his pants. To add to his humiliation, several pairs of women’s panties were found tucked into his coat pockets, still damp from the laundry line. He was then linked to a series of underwear thefts when a search warrant revealed the missing items neatly folded in the bottom of his dresser drawer.
Lee handed the report back to Chuck. “It wouldn’t hurt to interview him, I guess.”
“But you don’t think it’s him.”
“Not really.”
Chuck looked disappointed. There was another knock