“Go on.”
“The green light flashes so many times, the rats go to that chute every time. Why not? They’re rewarded eighty percent of the time.
“Now the behaviorists did the same experiment with humans.”
“Never been high on rat chow myself.”
I laughed. “The humans got M&M’s.”
“I know this is going somewhere,” said my partner.
“The people tried to predict when each light would go on. They were looking for a pattern — so many reds before a green, like that. And they were rewarded only sixty-seven percent of the time.”
“Proving that rats are smarter than people.”
I shook my head no.
Conklin tried again. “Proving that we should interview every name on both lists whether they’re red people or green?”
I laughed, said, “Proving that sometimes people think too much.”
“You’re tired, Linds.”
“Let’s compare the lists again. And this time, we don’t overthink. We just pull the names of the rats who had keys to the victims’ houses.”
Rich hit the Staples button, and it yapped, “That was easy.”
Chapter 52
PET GIRL WAS handing over Sara Needleman’s dogs to the caretaker, Lucas Wilde-boy, she liked to call him, when the squad car pulled up to the curb and two familiar cops got out. The woman cop was tall, blond, looked like Sheryl Crow had landed a gig on Celebrity Cops.
The guy cop was a couple of inches taller than the blonde, buffed, maybe thirty.
Sheryl Crow showed her badge, reintroduced herself as Sergeant Boxer and her partner as Inspector Conklin, and asked if Pet Girl would mind coming with them to the Hall of Justice to answer some questions.
Pet Girl said, “Okay.”
She was cool. All she had to do was play along, and they’d move along — just like they’d done the last time, when they’d questioned her about Isa and Ethan Bailey.
She slid into the backseat of the squad car, thought about the night she’d done it, pretty sure she hadn’t forgotten anything.
She flashed on Wilde-boy, positive that he hadn’t seen her go into Sara’s house because he’d walked naked past his window, the light going on in his bathroom, and she’d heard the shower running before she’d gone in the main entrance.
She remembered doing it to Sara when “the dame with the golden needle” was so boozed up, she couldn’t even open an eye. Pet Girl felt a thrill, like she wanted to laugh or maybe pee.
And she listened to the two cops gabbing in the front seat, talking to Dispatch, joking and stuff, seemed to Pet Girl that they weren’t acting like they had a killer sitting behind them.
More like they’d already forgotten she was even there.
She stood silently between the two cops as they went up in the elevator, turned down the offer of a soft drink when they showed her to the interview room.
“Are you sure?” the sergeant asked her. “Maybe a bottle of water?” Like the cop cared instead of wanting to get a DNA sample, a trick so old it was amazing anyone ever fell for it.
“I want to help,” Pet Girl said sweetly. “Whatever you want to know.”
Inspector Conklin was cute, had light-brown hair that flopped over his eyes. He pushed it away as he read to himself whatever notes he had written about her. And then he asked her where she’d been over the last forty-eight hours.
Pet Girl knew they were locking in her story in case they ever interrogated her again, and hey, no problem.