She looked wounded and wanted to discuss it further
but I begged off. I was weary, my head hurt, my joints were sore; it felt like
I was coming down with something. Besides, my altruism account was already
badly overdrawn.
We crossed the street in silence and parted ways.
By the time I got home I felt really lousy—feverish,
logy, and aching all over. There was a bright spot—an express letter from Robin
confirming her departure from Tokyo in a week. One of the Japanese executives
owned a condo on Kauai and he’d offered her the use of it. She was hoping I
could meet her flight in Honolulu and set aside two weeks for fun and sun. I
called Western Union and wired a Yes on all accounts.
A hot bath didn’t make me feel any better. Neither did
a cool drink or self-hypnosis. I dragged myself downstairs to feed the koi but
didn’t linger to watch them eat. Back in the house I fell into bed with the
paper, the rest of the mail, and Leo Kottke on the stereo. But I found myself
too drained to concentrate, and surrendered to sleep without a struggle.
BY MORNING my malaise had matured to influenza. I took
aspirin, drank lemon tea, and wished Robin were there to take care of me.
I kept the TV on for background noise and slept, on
and off, all day. By evening I was feeling well enough to hobble out of bed and
eat Jell-O. But even that tired me and soon I was back asleep.
In my dream I was adrift on an Arctic ice floe,
seeking shelter from a violent hailstorm in a meager cardboard leanto. Each new
fusillade shredded the cardboard, leaving me increasingly terrified and
exposed.
I awoke naked and shivering. The hailstorm continued.
Digital numbers glowed in the dark: 11:26. Through the window I saw clear black
skies. The hail turned into bullets. Shotgun fire stinging the side of the
house.
I dove to the floor, lay flat, belly-down, breathing
hard.
More gunfire. A percussive pop, then the tinkle of
broken glass. A cry of pain. A sickening dull sound, like a melon bursting
under a sledgehammer. An engine starting. Automotive escape.
Then silence.
I crawled to the phone. Called the police. Asked for
Milo. He was off-shift. Del Hardy, then.
Please.
The black detective came to the phone. Between gasps I
told him about the nightmare that had turned real.
He said he’d call Milo, both of them would be there
code three.
Minutes later the wail of sirens stretched up the
glen, trombones gone mad.
I put on a robe and stepped outside.
The redwood siding on the front of the house was
peppered with holes and splintered in a dozen places. One window had been blown
out.
I smelled hydrocarbons.
On the terrace were three open cans of gasoline.
Wadded rags had been fashioned into oversized wicks and stuffed into the
spouts. Oily footprints led to the edge of the landing and ended in a single
smear of a skidmark. I looked over the railing.
A man sprawled face down and motionless in the
Japanese garden.
I climbed down just as the black and whites pulled up.
Walked barefoot to the garden, the stone cool under feet burning with fever. I
called out. The man didn’t respond.
It was Richard Moody.
Half his face had been blown away. What remained was
dog food. Or more precisely, fish food, for his head was submerged in my pond
and the koi nibbled at it, sucking up the bloody water, relishing the novelty
of a new snack.
Sickened, I tried to wave them away but the sight of
me was a conditioned stimulus for feeding and they grew more enthusiastic,
feasting and slurping, scaly gourmands. The big black and gold carp came half
out of the water to get a mouthful. I could swear he grinned at me with
whiskered lips.
Someone was at my side. I jumped.
“Easy, Alex.”
“Milo!”
He looked as if he’d crawled out of bed. He wore a
lifeless windbreaker over a yellow Hang-Ten polo shirt and baggy jeans. His
hair was a fright wig and his green eyes gleamed in the moonlight.
“Come on,” he took my elbow. “Let’s go upstairs, get
something liquid in you and then you can tell me what happened.”
As the crime scene crew busied themselves with the
technical minutiae of murder I sat in my old leather sofa and drank Chivas. The
shock was beginning to slough off; I realized I was still sick— chilled and
weak. The Scotch went down warm and smooth. Across from me sat Milo and Del
Hardy. The black detective was dapper, as always, in a shaped dark suit,
peach-colored shirt, black tie, and spit-polished demiboots. He put on a pair
of reading glasses and took notes.
“On the surface,” said Milo, “it looks like Moody had
plans to torch your place and somebody followed him, caught him in the act, and
took him out.” He thought for a moment. “There was a triangle, right? How do
you like the boyfriend for the shooter role?”
“He didn’t seem the type to stalk a man like that.”
“Full name,” said Hardy, pen poised.
“Carlton Conley. He’s a carpenter for Aurora Studios.
He and Moody were friends before it triangulated.”
Hardy scribbled. “Did he move in with the wife?”
“Yes. They’re all supposed to be up near Davis. On the
advice of her lawyer.”
“The lawyer’s name?”
“Malcolm J. Worthy. Beverly Hills.”
“Better call him,” said Milo. “If Moody had a list he’d
be on it. Find out the number up in Davis and check out if anything went down
there—she’s still next of kin, has to be notified anyway. Have the local law go
over there and read her face—see
if she’s
surprised by the news. Call
the judge, too. Anyone else you can think of, Alex?”
“There was another psychologist involved in the case.
Dr. Lawrence Daschoff. Lives in Brentwood. Office in Santa Monica.” I knew
Larry’s office number by heart and gave it to them.
“What about Moody’s own lawyer?” asked Del. “If the
joker thought his case had been botched he might lash out, right?”
“True. The guy’s name is Durkin. Emil or Elton or
something like that.”
A grimace of recognition crossed the black detective’s
face.
“Elridge,” he growled. “Fucker represented my ex-wife.
Cleaned me out.”
“Well, then,” laughed Milo, “you can have the pleasure
of interviewing him. Or consoling his widow.”
Hardy grumbled, closed his pad, and went into the
kitchen and left to make the calls.
A crime scene tech beckoned from the door and Milo
patted my shoulder and went out to talk to him. He returned in a few minutes.
“They found tire tracks,” he said. “Fat ones, like on
a hot rod. Ring any bells?”
“Moody drove a truck.”
“They already looked at his wheels. No match.”
“Nothing else comes to mind.”
“There were six more gas cans in the truck, which
supports the hit list theory. But it also doesn’t make sense. He was going to
use three cans here. Let’s assume that he planned this out as some kind of
structured revenge ritual, three cans per victim. Given a minimum of five
victims—you, the other shrink, both lawyers, and the judge, that adds up to
fifteen cans. Six left means nine used. Not counting you, that makes two prior
attempts. If he planned on torching the family home, make it twelve and three
possible priors. Even if the numbers are wrong it’s unlikely you were singled
out for more gas than anyone else. Which means you probably weren’t his first
stop. Why would the shooter follow him around town, watch him set two or three
fires, risk being seen, and wait until the third to do the job?”
I puzzled over that.
“Only thing I can think of,” I said, “is this is a
pretty secluded area. Lots of big trees, easy for a sniper to hide.”
“Maybe,” he said skeptically. “We’ll pursue the tire
angle. The Hot Rod Killer. Catchy.”
He chewed on a hangnail, looked at me gravely.
“Got any enemies I don’t know about, pal?”
My stomach lurched. He’d put into words what had been
fulminating in my mind. That I was the intended victim…
“Just the Casa de Los Ninos guys, and they’re behind
bars. No one on the streets that I know of.”
“Way the system runs you never know whether they’re on
the streets or not. We’ll run parole checks on all of them. Which’ll be in my
best interests, too.”
He sipped coffee and leaned forward.
“I don’t want to raise your anxiety level, Alex, but
there’s something we should deal with. Remember when you called me about the
rat and I asked you to describe Moody? You told me you and he were almost
exactly the same size and coloring.”
I nodded numbly.
“You’ve been in the house all day, sick in bed.
Someone arriving after dark wouldn’t have known that. From a distance, the
mistake would be easy to make.”
He waited a moment before continuing.
“It’s not pretty to think about, but we’ve got to
consider it,” he said, almost apologetically. “In my gut I don’t think the Casa
thing’ll pan out. What about the jokers you’ve run into on the Swope case?”
I thought of the people I’d encountered during the
last couple of days. Valcroix. Matthias and the Touchers. Houten—did the
sheriff’s El Camino have fat tires? Maimon. Bragdon. Carmichael. Rambo. Even
Beverly and Raoul. None seemed remotely likely as suspects and I told Milo so.
“Of all of them, I like that asshole Canadian the
best,” he said. “Guy’s a Class A bad actor.”
“I don’t see it, Milo. He resented being interrogated
and could have held that against me. But resentment isn’t hatred and whoever
fired those shots did it out of blood lust.”
“You told me he was a heavy doper, Alex. They’ve been
known to get paranoid.”
I thought of what Beverly had said about Valcroix’s
increasingly strange behavior and repeated it to Milo.
“There you go,” he said. “Cokehead madness.”
“I guess it’s possible, but it still doesn’t feel
right. I wasn’t that important to him. Anyway, he seems more of an escapist,
someone who’d retreat rather than act out. The peace-love-Woodstock type.”
“So were the Manson family. What kind of car does he
drive?”
“No idea.”
“We’ll run it through D.M.V., then pick the guy up for
questioning. Talk to the others, too. Hopefully the whole thing will boil down
to Moody. When you get down to it he sounds like an easy one to hate.”
He stood and stretched.
“Thanks for everything, Milo.”
He waved it off. “Haven’t done a damn thing so don’t
thank me yet. And I probably won’t be able to handle it myself. Gotta travel.”
“Where to?”
“Washington, D.C. On the rape-murder. The Saudis have
one of those slick public relations firms on retainer. Been putting millions
into commercials showing they’re just plain folks. Prince Stinky’s exploits
could make them look like the enemy again. So there’s been pressure from the
top to let him slink out of town to avoid a trail and all the publicity. The
department won’t let go of this one cause the crimes were too damned ugly. But
the Arabs keep pushing and the politicos have to do a bit of symbolic
brownnosing.”
He shook his head in disgust.
“Other day a couple of gray suits from the State
Department came down and took Del and me out to lunch. Three martinis and haute
cuisine at the taxpayer’s expense, followed by congenial chitchat about the
energy crisis. I let them talk, then I shoved a bunch of pictures of the girl
Stinky killed right in front of them. Foreign Service types must have delicate
constitutions. They almost heaved right into the coq au vin. That afternoon I
got volunteered to fly to D.C. and discuss it further.”
“That’ll be something to see,” I said. “You and a room
full of bureaucrats. When are you leaving?”
“Don’t know. I’m on call. Could be tomorrow or the day
after. Going first class for the first time in my deprived life.”
He looked at me with concern.
“At least Moody’s out of the way.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I wish it could have happened
another way.” I thought of April and Ricky, what this would do to them. If
Conley turned out to have been the one who blew away their father, the tragedy
would be compounded. The entire case had a raw, primal stink that foreshadowed
tragic endings for generations to come.
Hardy came back from the kitchen and gave his report.
“Coulda been worse than it was. Half of Durkin’s house
is up in smoke. He and his wife suffered second-degree burns and some smoke
inhalation but they’re gonna live. Worthy had smoke alarms and caught it in
time. He lives in the Palisades, big property with lots of trees. Couple of ’em
burned down.”
Which meant plenty of hiding places. Milo glanced at
me meaningfully. Hardy kept on talking.
“The judge’s and Daschoff’s places haven’t been
touched so the cans in the car were probably meant for them. I sent uniforms to
check out all of their offices.”