The Door To December Part 32

He turned away from the house and returned to the street where he had parked the car. He opened the trunk and plucked one of the seven Albert Uhlander books from the carton that he had carried out of Ned Rink's house earlier in the evening. Regine had said that a man named Albert had visited her once and, unlike the others who used her, had never visited her again; she had said that he'd had a bony face with sharp features, hawklike. Now, in the ghostly radiance of a mercury-vapor streetlight and in the even more eldritch glow of the bulb in the car's trunk, Dan studied the photograph of the author on the book jacket. Uhlander's face was long, narrow, almost cadaverous, with prominent brow, cheekbones, and jawline; his eyes were cold and predatory, at least in the context of his hooked and beakish nose, and he did indeed have the aspect of a hawk or some other ferocious bird of prey.

So it had been Uhlander who had visited Regine, but only on one occasion, not motivated by overpowering and perverse s.e.xual needs, as were the others, but perhaps by curiosity, as if he needed to see for himself that she was real and that Hoffritz had thoroughly enslaved her. Maybe Uhlander had wished to satisfy himself as to Hoffritz's genius in these matters before joining him and Dylan McCaffrey on the strange project that they had undertaken with Melanie.

Whatever the case, Dan wanted to talk to him. He added Uhlander to the mental list of those whom he intended to question, a list that already included Mary O'Hara, Ernest Andrew Cooper's wife, Joseph Scaldone's wife (if he had one), the executives and/or owners of John Wilkes Enterprises, the silver-haired and distinguished pervert who visited Regine regularly and whom she knew only as 'Daddy,' and the other men who used her - Eddie, Shelby, and Howard.

He put the book back in the carton, closed the trunk, and got into the car just as a few fat drops of rain began to splatter the pavement. Scaldone's mailing list was still in his pocket, and he was certain that he would soon find last names for Eddie, Shelby, and Howard among those three hundred customers of the Sign of the Pentagram. The light there was poor, however, and he was tired, and his eyes felt sandy, and he still wanted to talk to Laura McCaffrey before it got too late, so he left the list in his pocket, started the engine, and drove out of the Hollywood hills.

At 10:44, when he reached Laura's house in Sherman Oaks, a cold rain was falling. Although lights were on in several rooms, no one answered the door. He rang the bell, then knocked, then pounded on the door, to no avail.

Where was Earl Benton? He was supposed to remain there until midnight, when another agent from California Paladin was scheduled to relieve him.

Dan thought of the crushed and disfigured corpses in Studio City the previous night, and he thought of the dead hit man, Ned Rink, and with growing anxiety he moved away from the door, squished across the wet lawn, pushed between two flower-laden hibiscus bushes, and peered in the nearest window. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, no bodies or blood or wreckage. He went to the next window, and still he saw nothing, so he hurried to the gate at the side of the house and went through it and along the walk to the rear, his heart racing and an ulcerous pain flaring in his gut.

The kitchen door was unlocked. As he pushed it open and stepped inside, he noted that the door frame was splintered and that a ruined security chain hung from its mounting. Then he saw the mess in the room beyond: torn and wilted flowers, shredded and wadded leaves, other greenery, clods of moist earth.

No blood.

On the table were three unfinished spaghetti dinners speckled with dirt and debris.

One overturned chair.

A tangled ma.s.s of impatiens bristled from the sink.

But no blood. Thank G.o.d. No blood. So far.

He drew his revolver.

Full of dread, with incipient grief welling in antic.i.p.ation of the battered corpses that must lie somewhere in the house, he edged out of the kitchen and moved cautiously from one room to the next. He found nothing but a wary cat that dashed away from him.

Checking the garage, he saw that Laura McCaffrey's blue Honda was gone. He didn't know what to make of that. When he uncovered no bodies anywhere, his relief was as great as if he had been trudging along an ocean floor with billions of tons of water pressing on him and was now abruptly transported to dry land where only air weighed on his shoulders. The extent and depth of his relief, and the great exhilaration that accompanied it, forced him to admit to himself that his feelings for this woman and her troubled child were different from his feelings for all the other victims whom he had known in fourteen years of policework. Nor could his unusual involvement and empathy be attributed to the vague parallels between this case and that of Fran and Cindy Lakey, years ago; he was not drawn to Laura McCaffrey solely because, by saving her and Melanie, he could atone for his failure to save Cindy Lakey's life. That was part of it, certainly, but he was also attracted to this woman. The influence that she had on him was not quite like anything he'd ever known before; he was drawn to her not only because of her beauty, which was undeniably affecting, and not only because of her intelligence, which was important to him since he had never shared most men's fascination with dumb blondes and airhead brunettes, but also because of her incredible strength and determination in the face of horror and adversity.

But even if she and Melanie get out of this predicament alive, Dan thought, there's probably little hope of a relationship between her and me. She's a doctor of psychology, for G.o.d's sake. I'm a cop. She's better educated than I am. She makes more money than I do. Forget it, Haldane. You're out of your cla.s.s.

Nevertheless, when he found no bodies anywhere in the house, he was immensely relieved, and his heart swelled with a particular joy that he would not have felt if the escapees from death had been any other escapees than this woman and her daughter.

When he returned to the kitchen to have a closer look at the wreckage there, Dan found that he was no longer alone in the house. Michael Seames, the FBI agent he'd met a few hours ago at the Sign of the Pentagram, was standing by the table, hands in the pockets of his raincoat, studying the floral debris that filled the room. Beneath his graying hair, above his apparently aged shoulders, a troubled and puzzled expression lay upon Seames's anachronistically young face.

'Where have they gone?' Dan asked.

'I was hoping you you could tell could tell me me,' Seames said.

'At my suggestion, she hired around-the-clock bodyguards-'

'California Paladin.'

'Yeah, that's right. But as far as I know, they weren't going to recommend that she go into hiding or anything like that. They were going to stay here with her.'

'One of them was here. An Earl Benton-'

'Yes, I know him.'

'Until about an hour ago. Then, without warning, he split with Laura McCaffrey and the girl, went out of here like a bat out of h.e.l.l. We have a surveillance van across the street.'

'Oh?'

'They tried to follow Benton, but he was moving too fast,' Seames frowned. 'In fact, it seemed like he was trying to give us the slip as much as anything else. You have any idea why he'd want to do that?'

'Just a wild guess. I'm probably totally off the wall to even suggest it. But maybe he doesn't trust you.'

'We're here to protect the child.'

'You sure our government wouldn't like to have her for a while, to try to figure out what McCaffrey and Hoffritz were doing with her in that gray room?'

'We might,' Seames admitted. 'That decision hasn't been made yet. But this is America, you know-'

'So I've heard.'

'-and we wouldn't kidnap her.'

'What would you call it - "borrowing" her?'

'We'd want to have her mother's permission for whatever tests we'd run.'

Dan sighed, not sure what to believe.

Seames said, 'You didn't maybe tell Benton that he should get them out from under us, did you?'

'Why would I do that? I'm a public servant, same as you.'

'Then you always work these hours, all day and half the night, on every case you handle?'

'Not every case.'

'Most cases?'

Dan could honestly say, 'Yeah, in fact, on most cases I put in long hours. You get going on an investigation, and one thing leads to another, and it isn't always possible to stop cold at five o'clock each day. Most detectives work long hours, irregular shifts. You must know that.'

'You work harder than most, I hear.'

Dan shrugged.

Seames said, 'They say you're a bulldog, that you love your work and you really sink your teeth into it, really hang on.'

'Maybe. I guess I work pretty hard. But in a homicide, the trail can get cold fast. Usually, if you don't get a lead on your killer in three or four days, you'll never hang it on anyone.'

'But you're putting more into this case than even the average homicide detective usually does, more than even you usually do. Aren't you, Lieutenant?'

'Maybe.'

'You know you are.'

'Arf, arf.'

'What?'

'The bulldog in me.'

'Why such a bulldog on this this case?' case?'

'I guess I was just in the mood for some action.'

'That's no answer.'

'I just ate too much Purina Dog Chow, have too much energy, got to work it off.'

Seames shook his head. 'It's because you've got a special stake in this one.'

'Do I?'

'Don't you?'

'Not that I'm aware of,' Dan said, although an image of Laura McCaffrey's lovely face rose unbidden in his memory.

Seames regarded him with suspicion and said, 'Listen, Haldane, if someone was bankrolling McCaffrey and Hoffritz because their project had a military application, then those same - let's call them financiers financiers - those same financiers might be willing to spread a lot of money around to get their hands on the girl again. But any money they spread would be dirty, d.a.m.ned dirty. Any guy who took it would probably come down with an infection from it. Know what I mean?' - those same financiers might be willing to spread a lot of money around to get their hands on the girl again. But any money they spread would be dirty, d.a.m.ned dirty. Any guy who took it would probably come down with an infection from it. Know what I mean?'

At first it had appeared that Seames was somehow aware of Dan's romantic inclinations toward Laura. Now it was suddenly clear that a darker worry nagged the agent.

For G.o.d's sake, Dan thought, he's wondering if I've sold out to the Russians or someone!

'Jesus, Seames, are you ever on the wrong track!'

'They might be willing to pay a lot to get their hands on her, and while a police detective is reasonably well paid in this city, he's never going to get rich - unless he moonlights.'

'I resent the implication.

'And I regret your reluctance to make a plain denial of that implication.'

'No. I haven't sold out to anyone, anywhere, at any time. No, nyet nyet, negative, definitely not. Is that plain enough for you?'

Seames didn't answer. Instead, he said, 'Anyway, when the surveillance team lost Benton, they drove right back here to wait, to see if the woman and girl would return, or whether maybe somebody else would show up. As an afterthought, they came to have a look around the house, found the door the way you found it - and this weird mess.'

Dan said, 'What about the mess? What do you make of it?'

'The flowers are from the garden in the back.'

But what're they doing here? Who brought them inside?'

'We can't figure it.'

'And why's the security chain been torn out of the door?'

'Looks like somebody forced their way inside,' Seames said.

'Really? Gee, you Bureau guys don't miss a trick.'

'I'm at a loss to understand your att.i.tude.'

'So is everyone else.'

'Your lack of cooperation.'

'I'm just a very bad boy.' Dan went to the telephone, and Seames wanted to know what he was doing, and Dan said, 'Calling Paladin. If Earl felt Laura and Melanie were in danger here, he might've moved them in a hurry, the way you say he did, but when he got wherever he was going, he'd call his office and tell them where he was.'

The night operator at California Paladin, Lonnie Beamer, knew Dan well enough to recognize his voice. 'Yeah, Lieutenant, Earl took them to the safe house.'

Lonnie seemed to think Dan knew the address of that place, which he didn't. Earl had spoken of it a few times, when he'd been telling tales about various cases on which he'd worked, but if he had ever said exactly where the safe house was, Dan had forgotten. He could not ask Lonnie Beamer for the address without alerting Seames, who was watching intently. He'd have to call the night operator again from another phone, once he had slipped away from the FBI agent.

On the phone, Lonnie said, 'But they probably won't be there much longer.'

'Why not?'

'Haven't you heard? Mrs. McCaffrey and the kid won't be needing our protection anymore - though she hasn't decided to let us go just yet. She may want us to hang around too, but for the most part, you people are taking over for us. You're giving them police protection.'

'Are you serious?'

'Yeah,' Lonnie said. 'Around-the-clock police protection. Right now, Earl's over there in Westwood, at the safe house, waiting for a couple of your people to show up and take the McCaffreys off his hands. They'll probably be there any minute.'

'Who?'

'Uh ... let's see ... Captain Mondale ordered the protection, and Earl's been told to relinquish our clients to Detectives Wexlersh and Manuello.'

Something was wrong. Very wrong. The department was too shorthanded to provide around-the-clock protection even in a case like this. And Ross wouldn't have called Paladin himself; that was always delegated to a.s.sistants. Besides, if protection were to be offered, it would be in the form of uniformed officers, not vitally needed plainclothes detectives who were in even shorter supply than patrolmen.

And why Wexlersh and Manuello, in particular?

'So you might as well stay there in Sherman Oaks,' Lonnie said, 'because I imagine your people will bring the McCaffreys straight back there.'

Dan wanted to know more, but he couldn't talk freely with Seames breathing down his neck. He said, 'Well, thanks anyway, Lonnie. But I think it's inexcusable that you don't know where your operative is or what's happening to your clients.'

'Huh? But I just said he was-'

'I've always thought Paladin was the best, but if you can't keep track of your agents and your clients, especially clients whose lives might be in jeopardy-'

Lonnie said, 'What's wrong with you, Haldane?'

'Sure, sure,' Dan said for Seames's benefit, 'they're probably safe. I know Earl's a good man, and I'm sure he won't let anything happen to them, but you better start running a tighter ship there or, sooner or later, something will happen to a client, and then there goes the whole agency's license.'

Lonnie started to say something more, but Dan hung up. He was desperate to get away from there, to find another phone and get back to Lonnie to hear more details. However, he didn't want to appear eager to depart, because he didn't want Seames to come with him. And if Seames thought that Dan knew where Laura and Melanie were, there would be no hope of leaving alone and un.o.bstructed.