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.'
