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“Not so crazy we shouldn’t pay the kid another visit,” he said.
There were other things we could do to be sure. We could wait and see if Coombs Sr.’s DNA matched what was found under Estelle Chipman’s nails. But that took time. The more I thought about it, the more Rusty Coombs made sense.
My brain was buzzing now. A tremor of recognition reverberated through me. “Oh my God, Warren… the white chalk…”
Jacobi leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. “What about it?”
“The white powder Clapper found at two of the scenes.” I recalled an image of Rusty Coombs, his freckled face and wide lineman’s shoulders in a sweaty Cardinals T-shirt. The epitome of a superior kid who’d turned his life around, right?
“Remember when we met him?”
“Sure, the gym at Stanford.”
“He was lifting weights. What do weight lifters use, Warren, to hold on to the bar so it doesn’t slip?” I stood up. My mind settled on the vivid image of Rusty Coombs rubbing his thick, white hands together.
“They use chalk,” Jacobi muttered.
Chapter 113
JOGGING BACK from afternoon practice, Rusty Coombs took the four-mile loop from the field house around South Campus. He decided to make the last two hundred meters an all-out sprint.
A police car wailed past him. Then another speeding cruiser.
At first, the sight of the cruisers jolted him. But as he watched the cars trail away, he relaxed. His muscular legs churned on.
Everything was fine, just fine. He was safe here at Stanford. One of the privileged few, right?
He went back to what he’d been thinking about before the cops rudely interrupted. If he could get his body fat down to 7.8, and slice his time in the forty another tenth or two, he could maybe move up to the third round of the NFL draft. Third round meant guaranteed bonus. Stick to the plan, he told himself. Fantasies had a way of becoming real, at least his did.
Rusty chugged onto Santa Ynez, a block away from the frat house where he and several other football players lived. As he turned down the street, his body slammed to a halt.
What the fuck… They’re here for me!
The street was ablaze with flashing lights. Police cars… three of them, and two maroon campus security vehicles in front of his house. A crowd milling in the street. Town cops weren’t allowed on campus for anything trivial. No, this was bigger, wide-screen….
He knew in a sickening flash that everything was over. He wouldn’t even have the chance to cut the lights out on the little bitch who had killed his father. His legs still moved, jogging in place.
What shot through his mind was, How the fuck could they have known? Who figured it out? Not Lindsay Boxer!
A geeky student in baggy red shorts with a red knapsack thrown over his shoulder came up the street toward him. Rusty continued to jog in place. “Hey, what the hell’s going on?”
“Police are looking for someone,” the guy said. “Must be something big, ’cause everyone’s saying cops from San Francisco are on the way.”
“No shit,” Rusty muttered. “All the way from San Francisco, huh?”
Too bad, he thought. He was pissed. He was also sorry it had to end. But he’d always fantasized about how this might play out.
He reversed himself and started jogging back in the direction of the Main Quad. His stride picked up speed, swiftly and powerfully.
Rusty Coombs turned his head as another police car, siren wailing, shot by. No point hiding out any longer. The cops were here in numbers.
Fortunately, he had the perfect ending.
Chapter 114
JACOBI AND I SPED DOWN 101 toward Palo Alto at a steady ninety. Signs for Burlingame, San Mateo, and Menlo Park shot past. We were pumped to take this creep down within the hour.
I was hoping we could take Rusty Coombs by surprise. Maybe as he came out of a class. There were thousands of students on the Stanford campus. He was armed and very dangerous, so I wanted to avoid a confrontation if I could.
