by Dean Koontz
“Did they ever catch anyone?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Who told you about this?” Lou asked.
“Alan.”
“Are you certain he knew what he was talking about?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I think he might have showed me a newspaper clipping about it.”
Lou sagged against the Mercedes, disappointed that yet another theory had been demolished.
But if the wife and son had been murdered just five years after Berton Mitchell committed suicide, why hadn’t Roger Fullet found that information in the Los Angeles Times’ files on the case?
Something exceedingly strange was happening. He was not a theatrical man given to bursts of melodrama. Nonetheless, he swore he could feel evil in the air that night.
A woman’s laughter bounced across the rippled water, high and shrill.
7:00 P.M.
Mary squeezed Max’s hand and waited tensely. Any minute the walkie-talkie would crackle with a report from one of the deputies. Any second there would be news of a man sneaking up the stairs in one of those towers; and when it came, the chase would begin in earnest.
7:03.
Mary repeatedly glanced at her watch in the back glow of the police cruiser’s headlights. She shifted restlessly from one foot to the other.
7:04.
For the first time in more than an hour, Chief Patmore looked at her, met her eyes. He wasn’t happy.
7:06.
She was beginning to feel that she had been outmaneuvered, outwitted. For the first time in her career she had encountered an adversary who was a match for her. She was tracking a man against whom all of her psychic abilities provided no advantage.
7:09.
She was numb with fear. “Something’s wrong,” she said.
“What is it?” Max asked.
“The killer’s not coming.”
Lou said, “But you saw him do it.”
“And what you see always happens,” Max said.
“Not this time,” she said. “This one’s different. He knows I’m after him. He knows the cops are watching the towers.”
Lou said, “If Patmore’s men have been too obvious—”
“No,” she said. “It’s just that the killer’s able to anticipate me. He isn’t coming.”
Lou said, “Don’t tell Patmore. We’ve got to wait a little while. We can’t give up yet.”
When there was no sign of a suspect at any of the towers by 7:30, John Patmore began to stride back and forth in front of his patrol car, scowling. As the minutes passed, he paced faster.
At 7:45 he picked up the walkie-talkie from the hood of the car; for fifteen minutes he talked without pause to Winterman, Holtzman, and Teagarten. Twice he lost control and shouted at them.
Finally he put down the walkie-talkie and came to Mary.
“The man isn’t coming,” she said.
“Was he ever really expected?” Patmore asked.
“Yes, of course.” She was miserable. She felt she’d hurt Lou by using his influence and then failing to deliver what she promised.
“What made him change his mind?” Patmore asked.
“He knows we’re waiting for him,” Max said.
“Yeah? Who told him?”
“No one,” Mary said. “He senses it.”
“Senses it? How?”
“He must ... he probably...”
“Yeah?”
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
“In my office,” Patmore said angrily, “you knew so much this morning. Everything you knew. Now you don’t know anything all of a goddamned sudden. Obviously you also don’t know that if I want, I can get nasty about someone coming to my office, this false crime report, a thing like that, wasting my time and the time of my men only to have some laughs, all for some sort of a lark!”
“Don’t have a stroke,” Lou said. “And don’t try to give Mary a stroke.”
Patmore turned away from her, faced Lou. “You’d share the blame if I pursued this.”
“You don’t have anything to pursue,” Lou said patiently. “You know perfectly well that we didn’t file a crime report—let alone one that was false. We simply came to your office to tell you that we had good reason to believe a crime would be committed.”
Patmore glared at him. “You set me up.”
“John, that is ridiculous.”
“And Percy Osterman helped you. Why? Hell, no. You don’t have to tell me. I see it, why he did. When people here voted, and Percy was against it from the start, for their own police, he was upset. He doesn’t care for me much, does he? He never showed it, but he sure mustn’t.”
Lou said, “You’re all wrong. Be reasonable, John. There’s no conspiracy against you. Mary’s sincere. Percy was sincere. We all are. We—”
“You want to make me look like a fool.” Patmore wagged his finger in Lou’s face. “You damned well better not print in your paper anything about this, about me falling for this psychic crap, because I’ll sue you if you do for libel. I’ll sue you for everything you’ve got.” There was an uncharacteristic fire in his usually dull brown eyes.
Mary took hold of Lou’s arm. “I’m wrung out, Lou. I don’t want trouble for you or me.”
“Yeah,” Max said. “Let’s drop it. Let’s go.”
Exasperated with the policeman, Lou said, “John, I’m not going to write about you. I haven’t any desire to make you look like a fool in the Press. You’ve got to realize there’s a psychopathic killer loose in this town and—”
Still seething, Patmore said, “You’ve written about me before.”
Lou was getting angry. “I’ve always written tame loyal opposition’ articles when I’ve disagreed with you. I’ve never been unfair to you. In fact, I think I’ve been too tolerant. It’s not my style to do a hatchet job. God knows, if I’d wanted to make you look like an idiot, I could have done it.”
Mary squeezed Lou’s arm, tugged at him.
Patmore said, “You’re a crummy reporter with a stinking two-bit newspaper, and you’re a lousy drunk to boot.”
For an instant she thought Lou was going to hit him. But he only stared hard at Patmore and said, “A drunk can always go on the wagon and sober up. But a stupid man who has a bottom-of-the-bucket IQ has to live with what he has forever.”
“Shit,” Patmore said. He walked back to the front of the squad car, picked up the walkie-talkie, and called Winterman, Holtzman, and Teagarten out of the towers.
“I’m sorry,” Mary said to Lou. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault he’s an idiot.”
Max opened the car door. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
When they were settled in Lou Pasternak’s book-strewn living room once more, Max asked, “What now? ”
“We wait,” Mary said.
“For what?” Lou asked.
Wearily, she said, “We wait for him to start killing people again.”
Friday, December 25
16
THE MOTEL ROOM was dark.
She was lying on her side. She turned onto her back.
She felt claustrophobic, as if the ceiling had begun to descend upon her.
“Can’t shut off your mind?” Max asked.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I’ve been waiting for you to doze off first.”
“You were so quiet,” she said.
“Trying not to disturb you.”
“What time is it?”
“Three o’clock.”
“Go to sleep, darling. I’ll be fine.”
“I can’t sleep if I know you’re worried.”
“I keep thinking I hear someone trying the door.”
“No one’s been at the door. I’d have heard it.”
“And I keep thinking someone’s at the window.”
“Not that either. It’s nerves.”
“Screaming mimis,” she said.
“Maybe you should
take a sedative.”
“I had a sleeping pill two hours ago.”
“So take another.”
“What is he, Max?”
“Who?”
“The killer.”
“Just a man.”
“No.”
“Yes, Mary. Yes. Just a man.”
Darkness pulsed around her.
“He’s something more,” she said.
“Take another sleeping pill.”
“I guess I should. But I was beginning to cut down. I was beginning to break the habit.”
“After this case you can go cold turkey. But right now the pills aren’t an indulgence. You’ve got good reason to need them.”
“Will you get one for me?”
He fetched a glass of water and the sedative, waited while she took it, switched off the light and returned to bed.
“Move close,” she said.
Her back was against his chest. Her buttocks against his groin. Two spoons in a drawer.
Several minutes passed in warm silence.
At last she said, “I’m getting sleepy.”
“Good.” He stroked her hair.
Still later: “Max?”
“Hmmm?”
“Maybe he can’t help being bad and doing awful things. Maybe he was born bad. Maybe evil isn’t always learned. Maybe parents and environment aren’t always to blame for an evil child. Sometimes maybe it’s in the genes.”
“Will you hush?”
“Max, am I going to die?”
“Eventually. We all do.”
“But soon? Will I die soon?”
“Not soon. I’m here.”
“Hold me.”
“I’m holding you.”
“I want to be strong.”
“You are strong.”
“I am?”
“You just don’t realize it.”
In ten minutes she was asleep.
He continued to stroke her hair.
He listened to her breathing.
He didn’t want her to die. He hoped she didn’t have to die. He wished with all of his heart and mind that she would give up on this case. Let the killing be done. She shouldn’t feel responsible.
Just let the killing be done. Did society feel responsible? No. Did the police feel responsible? They sometimes did their jobs, occasionally made an effort to find the killer, but they had as much contempt for victim as for victimizer; and none of them lost sleep over it. So let the killing be done. Forget it, Mary. Maybe she thought she was something special. Was that it? Unconsciously she might think that because of her psychic powers she couldn’t die. Well, she could. Like all the rest of the tender, sweet young girls who thought they, too, would live forever. She would be as vulnerable, as soft against the knife as all the others had been. So she should stop. Go away from this. If she forced the issue, if she pursued the case, she might have to die. She was standing in front of a juggernaut. She was in the path of a force she didn’t understand, a force that drew its greatest strength from the past, from an event that was twenty-four years old.
In the darkness, holding her as she slept, he wept at the thought of life without her.
Although sunrise was not far away, his flashlight was the only relief from inky blackness. His footsteps were the only sounds in the deserted arcade. He crossed the large main room. In summer it was filled with pinball machines and electronic games. Now the floor was bare, the main room empty. He entered the stairwell above which hung a large sign: THIS WAY TO OBSERVATION DECK.
The enclosed stairwell of the tower of Kimball’s Games and Snacks was narrow, cold, and dirty. It had not yet been repainted for the next season. His flashlight played off yellow-white walls that bore a thousand stains: children’s handprints, streaks of spilled soft drinks, names and messages scrawled in pencil and felt-tip markers.
The wooden steps creaked.
When he reached the walled platform at the top of the winding stairs, he switched off the flashlight. He doubted anyone would be watching at this hour; however, he didn’t want to risk drawing attention to himself.
Dawn was nothing but a thin, lustrous purple line on the eastern horizon, as if a razor had been drawn lightly across the skin of the night.
He stared out at the harbor.
He waited.
In a few minutes, from the corner of his eye, he caught movement in the air. He heard the flutter of wings.
Something roosted in the crossbeams of the peaked roof, rustled for a moment, then was silent.
He stared into the crouching shadows above and trembled with pleasure.
Tonight, he thought. Tonight, the blood again.
He could feel death all around him, a thick and tangible current in the air.
To the east, the wound in the sky grew wider, deeper. Morning oozed into the world.
He yawned and wiped the back of one hand across his mouth. He would have to get back to the hotel soon, get some rest. He hadn’t slept much in the past few days.
Three times within the next ten minutes, the sound of wings came again. On each occasion there was a temporary commotion in the rafters, and each time silence swiftly returned.
Eventually anemic light filtered through congealed masses of storm clouds and gradually painted the harbor, hills, and houses of King’s Point.
He was filled with a deep sense of loss. With light came depression. He functioned best in the blackest hours. Always had. But recently that was increasingly true. He felt at home in the night.
Overhead the highest rafters remained shrouded in shadows. The inside of the roof—a hollow, inverted funnel—was fifteen feet high; and even at noon darkness clung to its upper regions.
Dim as it was, morning had arrived; and now his flashlight wouldn’t be noticed by anyone below. He switched it on and pointed it up into the hollow roof.
This was what he had come to see: bats. A dozen bats or more. Clinging to the wooden rafters. Wings folded tightly around them. Some with eyes shut. Some with open eyes that gleamed iridescently in the beam of light.
The sight exhilarated him.
Tonight, the blood again.
At nine o’clock that morning Lou called Roger Fullet. “I’m sorry to have to bother you on Christmas.”
“You’re never a bother. Besides, you just saved me from a tedious little chore. The electric train went off the track and all the cars came uncoupled. If I talk to you for a few minutes, I’ll get back to the layout after junior’s got everything put back together.”
“I’ve learned something very interesting about this Berton Mitchell case.”
“Such as?”
“Apparently, Mitchell’s wife and son were murdered.”
“My God, when?”
“Five years after what he did to Mary.”
“You’ve got to be wrong.”
“Did you check to see if there were separate morgue files for the wife and son?”
“No. But even if there are, everything of importance should be duplicated in the Berton Mitchell file.”
“Doesn’t the Times make mistakes?”
“We’re loath to admit it. But occasionally things don’t get done right. Who killed the Mitchells?”
“Mary doesn’t know.”
“Nineteen years ago?”
“That’s what she says.”
“It happened here in L.A.?”
“I gather it did. Do me a favor?”
“I’m not working today, Lou.”
“The Times doesn’t shut down altogether on holidays. There are people working. Can’t you call in and have someone check this out for me?”
“It’s that important?”
“A matter of life and death.”
“What all do you want to know?”
“Everything about the murders... if they took place.”
“I’ll call you back.”
“How long will it take?”
“Maybe two hours.”
Roger called back in an hour and a half
. “There was a separate file on the murders of the wife and son. The story wasn’t cross-filed as it should have been.”
“It’s nice to know even you big city slickers can be wrong.”
“This is really a sick one, Lou.”
“Tell me about it.”
“After Berton Mitchell committed suicide, Virginia Mitchell and her son, Barry Francis Mitchell, rented a small house on the west side of Los Angeles. Judging from the address, I’d say it couldn’t have been more than a mile from the Tanner estate. Nineteen years ago, on October 31, Halloween, at two o’clock in the morning, someone used gasoline to start a fire that nearly burned the place to the ground with the mother and son inside.”
“Fire. That’s the death I fear most.”
“This has ruined my appetite for Christmas dinner.”
“I’m sorry, Roger. I had to know.”
“That’s not the worst of it. Although the bodies were badly burned, the medical examiner was later able to deduce that mother and son were stabbed to death in their sleep before the blaze started.”
“Stabbed...”
“Virginia had been stabbed so often in the throat that she’d been pretty much decapitated.”
“Sweet Jesus.”
“The son, Barry... was stabbed in the throat and chest. Then...”
“Then what?”
“His genitals were cut off.”
“There goes my dinner, too.”
“Before the fire burned it out, that place must have looked like a slaughterhouse. What kind of man could do all of that, Lou? What kind of maniac would be so gruesomely thorough?”
“Did they ever solve the case?”
“Never arrested anyone.”
“Did they at least have suspects?”
“Three of them.”
“What were their names?”
“I didn’t bother jotting them down. Each of them had an alibi, and each alibi eventually checked out.”
“So their killer might still be alive and loose. Were the police sure of the bodies?”
“Sure of them in what sense?”
“Identities.”
“I guess they weren’t burned beyond recognition. Besides, the house was occupied by Virginia and her son.”
“The woman’s body was probably Virginia’s. But isn’t it conceivable that the dead man they found was her lover and not her son?”
