The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

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.
    "You 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 compartment, 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 theCypress Streetbridge, then waited until there was no traffic and signaled him to go. Steve slithered under the bridge like a snake down its hole, his back knocking off great hunks of concrete, and he passed through.
    In less than an hour they were out of town, into the ranchland that ran along the coast to the north, and Molly led Steve up through the trees to the edge of a pasture. "There you go, big guy," Molly said, pointing to a herd ofHolsteins that were grazing a hundred yards away."Breakfast."
    Steve crouched at the edge of the forest like a cat ready to pounce. His tail twitched, splintering a cypress sapling in the process. Molly sat down beside him and cleaned mud from her sneakers with a stick as the cows slowly made their way toward them.
    "This is it?" she asked. "You just sit here and they come over to be eaten? A girl could lose respect for you as a hunter watching this, you know that?"
    Theo Theo found himself trying to figure out why, exactly, he was driving to Molly Michon's place, when his cell phone rang. Before he answered, he reminded himself not to sound stoned, when it occurred to him that he actually wasn't stoned, and that was even more frightening.
    "Crowe here," he said.
    "Crowe, this is Nailsworth, down at County. Are you nuts?"
    Theo stalled while he tried to remember who Nailsworth was. "Is this a survey?"
    "What did you do with that data I gave you?" Nailsworth said. Theo suddenly remembered that Nailsworth was the Spider's real name. A second call was beeping on Theo's line.
    "Nothing.I mean, I conducted an interview. Can you hold? I've got another call."
    "No, I can't hold. I know you've got another call. You didn't hear anything from me, do you hear? I
    gave you nothing, understand?"
    "'Kay," Theo said.
    The Spider hung up and Theo connected to the other call.
    "Crowe, are you fucking nuts!"
    "Is this a survey?" Theo said, pretty sure that it wasn't a survey, but also pretty sure that Sheriff Burton wouldn't be happy with a truthful answer to the question, which was: "Yes, I probably am nuts."
    "I thought I told you to stay away from Leander. That case is closed and filed."
    Theo thought for a second. It hadn't been five minutes since he'd left Joseph Leander's house. How couldBurton know already? No one got through to the sheriff that quickly.
    "Some suspicious evidence popped up," Theo said, trying to figure out how he was going to cover for the Spider ifBurton pressed. "I just stopped by to see if there was