Chapter 18 Thursday night, May 26

Jeremy wasn't running the way he'd hoped.The last time he faked a pass while running, he fell and sprained his ankle. He picked up a box of tea bags in an alley behind a supermarket.He had no relatives or friends to give, so he put it in his coat pocket and prepared to drink it at dinner. At ten o'clock in the evening, he was wearing underwear and underwear, sitting cross-legged on the dirty bed, eating a little leftover rice and beans from noon, and there were a few oily red pepper seeds on the stubble of his chin.An electric stove was on the floor, boiling water.The landlady forbade him to use the microwave, saying it was too expensive.She probably thought Jeremy still had the money to buy a microwave.But she never said that the electric stove is not allowed. In fact, the electric stove is better for Jeremy, and there are always discarded electric stoves in the garbage dump.

He put the big red cookie jar on the bed.There are many things in the jar, including earrings, metal buttons, watches, dozens of rings, two small knives the size of thumbnails, some unusual coins, a pair of stained women's underwear, several Keys and a few lighters, as well as two bras and a box of condoms.He likes to pour them out over and over again, put them on the bed sheet and admire them carefully. "Avoid...avoid...avoid...condoms." He held the condom box and said to himself.He knew where it was worn, but he never had the courage to try it. Jeremy stood up and took a deep breath, as if smelling something.He has a bad memory, but has a particularly keen sense of smell.Not Mrs. Lester.Twice in the last year she fell asleep with the oven on, and it was Jeremy who knocked on her door each time to remind her.But she always lost her temper with him afterwards, which made him very incomprehensible, but when this kind of thing happened again, even if he smelled something burnt, he would think twice before deciding whether to go or not remind her.

He took out the ring he had just picked up and tried to put it on his little finger, but his knuckles were too thick to fit it in.But he is also very satisfied to wear it on his finger.He put the ring in the palm of his hand and carefully admired the letters engraved on it. He has tried on the women's underwear many times, and sometimes he wants to try the feeling of having sex with a condom on, but that's just a secret thought in his heart, and he doesn't want to think too much about it yet. many.The smell was getting stronger, like the bread was burnt or something was mushy.He got up, put on his pants, and went into the living room.The smell in the living room was not so strong, but he went downstairs anyway, and stood at the door of Mrs. Lester's room, debating whether he should knock or not.

He knew Mrs. Lester would throw a tantrum, right or wrong, after he knocked, just as he had forgotten to turn off the tap last time.Maybe next week she'll take his toilet seat to a tenant in her basement.Once she went so far as to frame Jeremy for stealing her panties and stockings from the clothes dryer in the basement.Jeremy swore he hadn't done it, never taken anything from anyone unless Mr. Johnson allowed it, but Mrs. Lester still wouldn't believe him. Suddenly the smell became stronger and filled the entire corridor on the first floor.He looked down and was sure his pants were zipped up before raising his fist and knocking on the door.A minute passed, and with no response, he tapped three more times.

This time she finally opened the door, looked at him sleepily, and asked impatiently, "What do you want?" "Yes... yes... yes, Mrs. Le... Le... Mrs. Lester, I... I just... just... smelled... something burnt... charred...." "Oh, my God." She rolled her eyes up to the top of her head, and Jeremy thought she was going to faint, until she realized she was looking upstairs over the top of his head, and when he turned, there was a A thick puff of black smoke was billowing from his room upstairs. His heart started beating wildly, and he kept saying, "Le... La... S... S... too... too!" He ran upstairs quickly, checked room by room, and was sure None of his neighbors were home.He wanted to get the cookie box out of his bed, but it was too late, as his room was engulfed in flames.

Fire trucks evacuated the road and police blocked traffic from Mrs. Lester's house all the way to the Rio Grande Boulevard.Firefighters threw the last piece of Mrs Lester's furniture out of a second-floor window.Someone draped a blanket over Jeremy and put him in an ambulance, where the ambulance doctors treated the bruises on his feet while giving him oxygen.The fire hoses and pumps had ruined Mrs. Lester's wooden floors and carpet.Jeremy was in the ambulance and saw the firefighters walking up and down his room, the spotlights from the truck shining on their yellow suits and hats.

When the fire truck first arrived, for safety reasons, firefighters evacuated the people in the house next door. After the fire was extinguished, people were allowed to return to the house. Mrs. Lester's house has been destroyed by water and smoke, and she and her tenants are homeless. Jeremy saw a fireman talking to Mrs. Lester with a burnt, deformed piece of metal that looked like his electric stove.Seeing Mrs. Lester walking across the street with clenched fists and an angry face, Jeremy quickly looked back. He had never seen her so angry. "You have no home! Never have a home! Get out of here, Jeremy, get out!"

She was so angry that she could hardly speak.Her face was contorted so badly that her dentures fell out of her mouth and she had to pick them up and put them in her mouth before continuing to stamp her feet and yell at Jeremy. A moment later, a police car raced into the block, and a uniformed policeman jumped out of the car, with epaulettes representing his rank on his shoulders.He flew past the firemen who were pulling out the fire hose and took a few strides up the arched steps in front of the house. Ten minutes later the policeman was back, talking to Mrs. Lester on the pavement.Mrs. Lester pointed at Jeremy and stomped desperately.Jeremy had a sense of foreboding.

An old metal table was thrown from the second floor with a thud, hitting the ground hard, and then shattered glass and the black lid of a biscuit box rolled into the street, and the lid spun several times before stopping.The uniformed policeman walked up to Jeremy.He was short, with a big beer belly, hat in his hand, and a grim smile on his mouth. "You are Jeremy Smiley?" Jeremy nodded. "Is that your room?" The policeman asked, pointing to the second floor. Jeremy shook his head and said, "No." "Say it again?" the policeman yelled at him. "Mrs. Lester says I can't live there any longer."

The cop took a deep breath. "But you used to live there. You lived in that room alone until the fire tonight, didn't you?" Jeremy nodded. "And everything in that room is Mrs. Lester's and yours personally, isn't it?" Jeremy didn't answer.He was thinking how to answer.All he had was a few clothes, an electric stove and a few small things in a cookie box.Everything else belonged to Mrs. Lester. "I'm asking you something." The policeman raised his voice. "I have nothing but a few clothes and little things," Jeremy said with a smile.

"What little thing?" the policeman almost screamed. "Have you got any other damn jewels in your stash?" Jeremy nodded. "Those watches, rings, key chains and other things are mine. Can I get them back?" The cold smile on the policeman's face deepened. "Now you're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, but anything you say will be used as evidence in court. You also have the right to hire a lawyer, and of course if you can't afford a lawyer, the U.S. government will take taxpayers' money." Qian appointed one for you. Got it, you bastard?" On West Spicer Avenue, O'Shaughnessy turned off the siren on the roof, opened the door, and got out.She saw a handcuffed man sitting in Officer Dillon's car.A black Lincoln city limousine drove over quickly, slammed on the brakes, and stopped on the side of the road. Dillon walked to her car door and pointed idly to the crowd gathered outside Mrs. Lester's house. "What right do you have to call Mr. Carino?" O'Shaughnessy demanded him. Dillon turned his head with a sneer and said, "Stop, ma'am. I think he'll appreciate me breaking his daughter's case. We're servants of the people, aren't we, Lieutenant? We have no right to hide anything, do we?" " "You released the clues in the case I was in charge of again. I will go to the investigation department to complain about you and let them remove you. Do you hear me clearly, Officer Dillon?" Dillon held up a hand, as if to stop an offending motorcyclist, "Look, ma'am, I'm not taking credit for you or anyone else. As long as I'm paying attention to this case, it's mine. It's mine. Broken." He pointed at her and said, "You and your detectives are just strutting around town with stupid flyers." He pointed to the crowd and said, "Everyone is Here, I suppose, as a lieutenant, you know what to do." Dillon turned and walked to his patrol car. O'Shaughnessy's first instinct was to fire him.Disobedience to orders from superiors is subject to dismissal.But he just cracked one of the most high-profile cases in town.What happened tonight will make headlines all over town tomorrow morning.Handle the scene calmly first, she warned herself.Dillon, just wait for me, one day I will deal with you, she thought angrily. Jason Carino was wearing a silk shirt, Italian loafers, and no socks.When O'Shaughnessy walked over, he was poking McGuire's chest hard with a finger, as if talking angrily. "Sir Carino," she interrupted him. He turned and glared at her, "I want you to lock that bastard up, Lieutenant. I don't want to hear that he's a lunatic or anything. If you screw this up and let him go, I have a way to remove you." He turned angrily and got into his Lincoln sedan. "It's okay now," she told McGuire. McGuire nodded lightly, and said, "When Carino came, Dillon just let the suspect stand outside the police car in handcuffs. He jumped out of the Lincoln and ran over to slap the suspect in the face. The suspect His name is Jeremy Smiley. He works for the Department of Public Works. I have informed their chief to come over." McGuire pointed to a man leaning against an orange truck. "He Call Johnson, he helped me pull Carino away from Jeremy. Lieutenant, did you tell Dillon to call Carino? I mean, how did he get his number? ?” "Don't talk about Dillon, this is not the time to say these things. Tell me what you know." McGuire looked at her fixedly, and O'Shaughnessy knew he was trying to figure out her thoughts again, "McGuire, now we have to deal with business first. We will deal with Dillon later, I promise." McGuire nodded, took two deep breaths, and said, "The firefighters said they found a tin box full of jewelry and found women's panties in his bed. They assumed the jewelry was stolen." Yes, so I called the police. When Dillon arrived at the scene, he happened to see the ring with Anne Carino's initials engraved on it, and he was arrested on the spot." "Have you talked to him?" "I asked him where it came from and he said he picked it up when he was picking up trash under the boardwalk. When I asked about the ring with his initials on it, he said it was his crack in the boardwalk found in." O'Shaughnessy remembered that Annie's watch was also buried in the sand, and asked, "He didn't say where he found it?" McGuire shook his head and said, "There were too many people around me at the time, so I didn't ask carefully." "What did Carino say afterwards? Jeremy is a psychopath?" "That's the crux of the matter, Lieutenant. He's really mentally ill. You'll understand when you see him." She scanned the crowd.There are two heavy-set gay men with goatees, in sleeveless shirts and shorts, hugging each other's waists in an intimate look; Staring at her with a bitter expression; more than a dozen young people chewed gum while chatting and laughing, and fiddled with each other's clothes from time to time. "We followed him to the hospital and made a record for him. He should be able to cooperate, right?" McGuire shrugged and said, "I think we'll find out, Lieutenant. Now I'm going with the fire department to clean up the scene." McGuire went to the scene of the accident.O'Shaughnessy walked to the sanitation truck. "Mr Johnson, is it?" she asked. "You can just call me." He said, reaching out to shake her hand. "My name is Kelly. I heard the suspect was working for you?" He nodded and said, "Are you going to sue him?" "At present he is only an important witness to this abduction. We have some questions to ask him. Can you tell me something about him?" "If your people think he is a murderer, I can guarantee that he will not commit crimes." "Why are you so sure, Mr. Johnson?" The lanky man leans against his truck with arms folded.He wore a drab khaki uniform, scruffy boots, and his hands were callused, with a thumbnail that might have been damaged before and was now blackened.Johnson looked like a typical public servant, laborer, or foreman, but his eyes and voice suggested that he was not that type of person. "Are you Jim's daughter?" O'Shaughnessy nodded. "When you were a little girl, Smiley was in a car accident. The school bus he was on was hit by a drug addict and it went off the road. He spent a long time under the water before he He was rescued, and then he suffered from sequelae. He was slow to react, but he was honest. He was the best sanitation worker I have ever seen." Jeremy smiled at them from inside the prison van as it passed them. "Why can't he be the murderer of the kidnapping?" "He's not that kind of guy at all, Lieutenant. That's not in his nature. And he's not that smart. Where do you think he's smart enough to hide a body that even you police can't find?" O'Shaughnessy stood there silently.He thought she was listening attentively.She put her hands in her trouser pockets and looked at the crowd around her.Finally her eyes fell on a house in the corner.Her thoughts flew back to her daughters, who lived with Tim today.Had to drop them off at his house when she came to the scene.She was going to pick them up as soon as she finished her work, so that they would have enough time to rest.If she stayed too late, she would have to wake them after they were asleep, and that would take more sleep from them, but what could she do?Is the separation really all her fault?If Tim can come home on time every day like the daughters hope, then the children can sleep peacefully in the bed at home every day, get up on time every day, eat breakfast and lunch on time, and do homework on time. I don't worry about whether I will move to my father, grandma or neighbor's house tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. "I do believe that there are people who would do such a thing, and if you told me they did it, I would have no doubts. But Smiley is not one of them. He is extremely sensitive to people's condemnation, and he does not Will do illegal things." O'Shaughnessy quickly took his thoughts back from the children, "There are also two aspects. Usually some mental patients have some distorted views of the world. They see things as normal I only see two extremes, love and hate." "He's like a tame cat, Lieutenant. He won't hurt anyone or anything." O'Shaughnessy looked at Johnson.To be honest, she really hoped that Jeremy was the murderer, that he would plead guilty, and then take her to find the body, so that she could close the case as soon as possible.But what Jeremy said about finding the ring made sense too.She had also been to the sewers under the boardwalk, where she had found Anne's watch.She also felt, as well as anyone else, the feeling of terror that Anne Carino felt at the time.Maybe Annie knew that the murderer might find her, and she didn't want the ring to fall into the hands of the murderer, so she took off the ring and stuffed it into the gap between the planks.Or, she was trying to leave clues so the police could rescue her.