The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh Read Free Book Online Page B

was that he'd been up in the attic putting down floorboards he'd stolen from a construction site, telling his wife he'd bought them at a bargain sale. He thought for sure he was about to be nicked for the theft, and it wasn't the only thing he'd stolen; he'd also pinched a cabinet unit he thought might fit nicely in the kitchen. He wasn't ordinarily a thief, but the opportunity had presented itself and he wasn't one to pass up an opportunity. Upon talking to the policeman, the baker was extremely relieved to learn that the officer had no knowledge whatsoever of the stolen property.
    In that Colin Pitchfork hadn't lived in Littlethorpe at the time of the murder he would've been relegated to a low-priority classification, except that he had been discovered to have had a prior indecency record. It seemed that he was a convicted flasher, and had been from a very early age, so he was on the list. Later, after a computer match-up, he ended up on three indexes: the indecency list, the Carlton Hayes outpatient list because he'd been referred to therapy by the court for one of the flashing offenses, and the house-to-house resident list.
    Pitchfork's classification in the incident room was as an unalibied "code four." Code one meant that the suspect couldn't have done it because he was dead, in prison, or his whereabouts had absolutely been proved. Code two meant he'd been alibied by a friend or colleague. Code three was a wife's alibi, which was never very reliable. The inquiry team could end up with a man who was part code two, part code three and part code four, if, for example, he'd seen his wife early in the evening, gone out with friends and then walked home alone.
    They were looking for someone who was unalibied between seven and midnight. According to both Pitchfork and his wife, he had driven her to a night class at the community college early that evening while their baby slept in the backseat in a carrycot. The baker then had gone home to his former residence and sat with the baby until his wife was finished with her class. Technically, he was unalibied from 6:45 P . M . until 9:15 P . M ., but he would've had to leave his baby unattended in order to go out and murder.
    Psychologists maintain that flashers are a relatively harmless lot, and Pitchfork had no history of violence. Furthermore, he'd moved to Littlethorpe in December, one month after the murder of Lynda Mann. Not having been a villager at the time of the murder, he probably wouldn't have known about The Black Pad and the gate into the copse.
    He was not given a high priority, but his diabolical surname caused a joke or two in the incident room. After all, a Pitchfork would have to be guilty of some sort of villainy.
    Derek Pearce's father had always wanted him to become a doctor. The older man had been a strict parent: ex-army, railway worker, traffic warden. He'd ended his working career as the curator of the regimental museum in Leicester. Pearce's mother was, as Derek called her, "a mum's mum." Pearce had a brother one year older and two younger sisters, but four weren't enough for Mrs. Pearce. She became a foster mother, and the house was literally crawling with babies. She'd take any and all kinds, with or without birth defects.
    When Pearce was nineteen he'd joined the Leicestershire Constabulary on a whim. As a result, his father hardly spoke to him for a year. When his older brother changed his college program from biochemistry to medicine, Derek Pearce was relieved. He hoped that with a budding doctor in the house his father would relent.
    A lifelong problem with his inner ear made it difficult for Pearce to walk a straight line. In marching drills at the police training center they'd put him in the middle and let him bang into the shoulders of his colleagues, but he was good at other aspects of police training.
    During his first year in the field he won the Harris Cup given to the probationer of the year, and his picture appeared in the Leicester