Gary Brandner

by Doomstalker (v2. 0) (epub)

  He awoke with nerves taut and vibrating.

  Mavis, her hands still wet from the kitchen sink, appeared beside his chair. "What is it? What's the matter?"

  Kettering righted himself awkwardly. "Nothing."

  "Nothing? Jesus, Brian."

  "I spilled my drink."

  "The way you yelled, I thought you were having a seizure of some kind."

  "I was dozing off. The cold startled me, that's all."

  "Did you have a bad dream?"

  "I told you, I spilled my drink."

  She gave him a long look. "Brian, are you sure you're all right?"

  "I'm fine. Just drop it, okay?"

  Mavis flinched away from the cutting edge of his tone. "Sure. Right. Whatever you say." She turned back toward the kitchen and spoke without looking at him. "As long as we're all home, we might as well have an early dinner tonight."

  "I'm not very hungry."

  "You'll feel better if you eat something."

  He sighed heavily. "I'll go change my shirt."

  Mavis looked at him for a moment, then went back out to the kitchen.

  Kettering got up and used a handkerchief to mop at his shirt. He retrieved the melting ice cubes from the chair and dropped them back into the glass. He hesitated, looking toward the kitchen, wondering if he should go out and say something to Mavis. Again he had spoken more sharply than he meant to. No, better leave it alone. He went on back to their bedroom.

  ***

  Dinner at the Kettering house that evening was a grim and silent affair. Mavis's meat loaf, with its finely chopped green pepper and onion, and subtle combination of spices, usually drew raves from Trevor and even a compliment from Brian. Tonight it was eaten in silence.

  Trevor ate quickly, glancing repeatedly at his watch, but he stayed in his chair. Kettering chewed and swallowed methodically, his thoughts somewhere else. Except for an occasional frown at his son's haircut, he might have been eating alone. Mavis watched them nervously, relieved when Kettering pushed his chair back, signaling that the meal was over.

  When the dishes had been cleared away and Trevor had again escaped from the house, Kettering settled once more into his recliner, snapped on the television set, and flapped open the Valley News. He sat holding the paper in front of him without really reading it. Mavis came in and stood watching him.

  "Are you going to tell me about it, or am I supposed to guess what's going on with you?" she said. "And if you tell me once more nothing's wrong, I'll scream."

  "Don't start on me, Mavis."

  "And don't you treat me like an intruder. We've been married eighteen years. I've got as much invested here as you. Maybe more. I saw it right away when you got up this morning. I hoped it was just a mood - you'd slept badly or something. But no, you come glooming back into the house tonight bringing your cloud of trouble with you. Something's wrong, Brian. I want to know what it is. You've gone through these moods before and I've let it pass. I can't do that anymore. If this is something we can fix, let's talk about it. And if it isn't, we'd better start thinking about alternatives."

  "What's that speech supposed to mean?"

  "It means communication around here is lousy, and I'm not going to take it anymore."

  "You've been listening to that lady shrink on the radio again."

  "Damn it, Brian, don't patronize me."

  "All right, what can I say? I got up with a headache, I came home in a bad mood. It happens to everybody. I'm sorry. Okay?"

  "No, not okay. If that was really the only problem, I could handle it. But it's more. I'm not blind, Brian. Something is eating you up. And it's splitting us apart. Do you know how long it's been since we made love?"

  "Twenty-seven days."

  Mavis faltered for a moment, then went on. "So you've been counting too. It's a bad situation, Brian. We'd better do something about it while we still can. I'm not kidding."

  "So call Dr. Ruth."

  "Oh, that's fine. Be sarcastic. Belittle the problem. Anything to avoid the issue."

  "Mavis, I promise you we'll sit down and talk this out for as long as you want and as seriously as you want. But not right now, okay? Right now I'm tired, my head hurts, I'm no good for talking or anything else."

  Mavis hesitated before speaking again. "We're getting to be like strangers sharing the house. We don't talk, we don't do anything together. We haven't for a long time."

  "I told you - " he began.

  She took a deep breath and plunged in. "How about coming to church with me Sunday?"

  "Not that again."

  "Yes, that. Again."

  "You know how I feel about church. How I've always felt."

  "Because of your father."

  "That's right. My father, the minister. He not only preached the Gospel on Sunday, he believed in what he preached. He never questioned the rightness of God and the Church. If the Church couldn't protect my father, it sure as hell isn't going to help me."

  "Your father died before you were ready, that's all," Mavis said. "You can't hold the Church responsible for that."

  "That's not the whole story."

  "Are you ever going to tell me the rest of it? What really happened to your father?"

  "I would if I could. I was six years old when I saw him die. It wasn't an easy death, Mavis. Not for him, not for me. To this day I couldn't tell you what I saw back then, but it haunts me. It's like something just outside my field of vision, and if I turned real fast, I could see it. Hell, I even spin around sometimes when I feel like that to try and catch whatever's hiding there. There never is anything. What can I tell you?"

  Mavis held his eye until he looked away. Then she turned and left him alone.

  Kettering scowled at the door where she had gone out. Nice going, Mavis, he thought. Tomorrow you can call it an even four weeks without sex, because with that attitude there sure won't be any fooling around tonight.

  He made a disgusted sound in his throat. Who the hell was he kidding? Sure, go ahead and blame the woman. The easy way out. Engineer a fight. The male equivalent of the woman's headache. The truth was, he simply hadn't felt like making love for a long time. Not to his wife, not to anybody. Not since the headaches started again. And the dreams. Unlike a woman, a man had to be in the mood to do it, or it was impossible. He had taken to staying up later and later at night so Mavis would be asleep when he came to bed. And on his days off, times when they used to enjoy a leisurely morning in bed, he was finding excuses to get up early.

  What the hell, maybe he had simply lost it. Age forty-three really shouldn't put him over the hill, but other men had pooped out earlier than that. Not fun to think about, but there was no denying the fact that he couldn't seem to get it up and keep it up anymore. At least not when he was in a position to do something about it with his wife. Sure, there was the traditional waking-up hard-on, but that wilted as soon as he reached over and touched the familiar mounds and dips of Mavis's body. Familiar. Maybe that was the problem. There was not a square centimeter of her body that he did not know the feel of. Still firm and smooth, but too familiar. He knew her special smell, the taste of her. Maybe eighteen years was longer than a man and woman were meant to live together and still get each other excited.

  Or, damn it, just maybe it was flat out his fault. Cops as a group were not the best husbands, and he had been maybe more distant than most. And since the dreams started coming again, his nerves had been constantly frayed. If he could just get a couple of good nights' sleep without the dreams, maybe everything would be okay.

  And maybe not.

  Chapter 2

  By eleven o'clock in the morning Kettering had swallowed eight aspirin tablets, but the headache still lurked somewhere behind his eyes, waiting for a chance to grab his brain. When he finally went to bed the night before, he had slept only fitfully. He had waited for the dream to come. Blessedly, it had not.

  Mavis had feigned sleep when he came to bed. That was fine with him. It would not be the first night they h
ad spent lying next to each other in the queen-size bed without touching.

  He could tell from Mavis's breathing that she too had slept poorly. At some time before dawn he came fully awake, feeling desperately lonely. Mavis, sleeping on her side with her face turned away from him, stirred in her sleep. Kettering waited, tense, for her to reach over and touch him. He was ready to wipe away their argument and respond by taking her into her arms. He really did love this woman. By the strength of his embrace he would reassure her of that. But Mavis kept to her own side of the bed, making no move toward him. Kettering was damned if he would be the one to reach out first.

  In the morning he got up at the usual time and dragged himself into the shower. While he sluiced and soaped, Mavis got up and slipped on the grungy old terry-cloth robe he kept intending to replace. She went into the kitchen and prepared his usual weekday breakfast of grapefruit juice, one soft-boiled egg, an English muffin, and coffee. When he came in to eat it, she went off to her own bathroom. She was still in there when it was time for him to leave. He called a good-bye through the bathroom door. Her reply was muffled. Kettering shrugged, adjusted his hip holster, pulled on a jacket, and left the house.

  It was a hell of a way to live, he thought. Man and woman muttering at each other through closed doors. He stomped across the lawn, climbed into the Camaro - streaked now where the dew had made rivulets through the dust - and drove the four miles from his home to the West Valley Police Building.

  His partner, Alberto Diaz, was already at his desk with the Los Angeles Times sports page spread out before him. Diaz had a square brown face that was made for laughing. At the moment he was frowning down at the newspaper. Kettering dropped into the chair at the facing desk with a groan.

  "Can you believe who the Dodgers are talking about trading?" Diaz said without looking up. He waited. "Well? Can you?"

  "Who?" Kettering said without interest.

  "Only Pedro Guerrero."

  "So?"

  Diaz looked up at him in astonishment. "So? So? So without Guerrero they're a fourth-place team. Tops. What they need is - "

  "Al, do you mind, today I can't be really worried about what the Dodgers need or where they finish."

  "Whoa, aren't we touchy."

  "Can we just bag the small talk?"

  "Whatever you say." Diaz folded the sports page and stuffed it into a desk drawer. "Shall we get on the road?"

  "Let's."

  They checked out an anonymous WVPD Plymouth and spent most of the morning driving around in silence. Now and then Diaz would slide a sideways glance at Kettering, who always managed to be looking somewhere else.

  About eleven o'clock Diaz said, "What do you want to do for lunch? Feel like Mexican?"

  "I don't care. Whatever you want."

  "Mexican's good. Sticks with you. Or maybe lasagna at the Brick Oven. What do you think, is lasagna too heavy for this time of day?"

  "I told you I don't care."

  Diaz drove on for several blocks in silence.

  "They've got good salads too. The Brick Oven. Big. Lots of cheese and mushrooms."

  Kettering grunted a reply without looking at him.

  "You're not a lot of fun today, you know that?" Diaz said.

  "Nobody told me I was supposed to entertain you."

  "Hey, partner, you okay?"

  "I'm fine. First-rate."

  "Really?"

  "I'm okay, for Chrissake. Can't I just be quiet once without you interrogating me?"

  "Sure. Be quiet all you want. I like quiet."

  Five more minutes.

  "Al."

  "Yeah?"

  "Don't mind me. I didn't sleep much."

  "It shows."

  "Yeah. Be glad you're not married to me."

  "Hardly a day goes by that I don't thank my stars."

  After another five minutes Diaz said, "I think just a burger. I'm not all that hungry."

  "Fine," Kettering said. "Burgers are fine."

  The radio crackled with their call number. Kettering and Diaz listened as the female dispatcher gave them the message in her professional monotone.

  "Can you believe it?" Kettering said. "Another Screwdriver sighting."

  "He's a popular sumbitch," Diaz said.

  "To be all the places he's been seen, the guy would have to be fucking quintuplets."

  "This one isn't far from here," Diaz said. "We can check it out then go over to Wendy's on Reseda. Or do you think the Burger King?"

  "Jesus Christ, Al - "

  "Okay, okay, Wendy's then."

  The Screwdriver was the police nickname for a rapist operating in Los Angeles and West Valley. The name derived from the sharpened tool he used to force his victims into compliance. Since the first of the year he had run up a total of some twenty victims in the two cities - young women living alone, generally in poor neighborhoods. So far nobody had been killed. The police figured it was only a matter of time.

  Two weeks earlier a composite drawing of the rapist - early twenties, Latino, stocky build, long greasy hair - had been published locally and shown on the nightly newscasts. Since then L.A. and West Valley Police departments had received more than a hundred reports from people who were sure they had seen him. Each report had to be checked out. So far none had proved accurate. This one was sighting number eight for the team of Kettering and Diaz.

  A woman had called in to say, in some agitation, that a man who looked like the Screwdriver was living in the same building as her mother. An address in the 14700 block of Saticoy. He was in apartment 212 with a young woman, and the caller reported strange sounds coming from inside.

  "Guy's probably having a beef with an ex-wife or a girlfriend," Diaz guessed. He did not say it lightly. Both men knew how dangerous it could be answering a domestic dispute. The honor roll of dead cops down at the Police Building would attest to it.

  Diaz pulled the Plymouth to the curb across the street from the apartment building, checked the address, and nodded to Kettering. It was a rundown section of the Valley separated from the rest of Los Angeles by the Ventura Freeway. The neighborhood was one of auto-repair shops, used-furniture stores, dingy bars, taco stands, and crumbling apartment buildings. Graffiti in the spiky letters of the local street gangs soiled all available wall surfaces like bird droppings.

  There was no need for talk now between the detectives. From this point on, training and experience took over.

  The building was two floors of flaking gray stucco in a square U shape with a swimming pool between the legs. Standard Southern California 1950s, style. Kettering and Diaz entered the courtyard through a broken iron gate. Dead leaves floated on the pool. Beer cans and fast-food wrappers littered the deck.

  A dark, heavy woman sat in a beach chair beside the pool drinking a Pepsi while two children splashed in the shallow end and argued in high-pitched Spanish. The woman's eyes followed the detectives as they entered and climbed the crumbling steps to the second floor.

  The apartments on the second floor opened onto a walkway that ran around the inside of the U. Diaz and Kettering made their way around from the stairway and stopped at number 212. They positioned themselves at each side of the door. At a nod from Kettering, Diaz pushed the door-bell button, waited a moment, then knocked.

  A voice from inside called, "Who is it?"

  "We'd like to talk to you," Diaz said.

  "Fuck off."

  Diaz and Kettering exchanged a weary look.

  "Police," Kettering said through the door. "Open up."

  A woman's voice began to shout from within the apartment and was immediately muffled. The detectives drew their guns. Diaz stood to one side. Kettering planted his left foot on the walkway and slammed the bottom of his right size-twelve triple-E into the door just below the knob. The cheap hollow panel splintered and the door slammed open against the inside wall.

  Kettering dropped into a combat stance, the S&W Centennial locked in both hands, pointed dead at the two people standing in the center o
f the living room. Diaz moved quickly in after him and stepped off to one side.

  A thin blond man of twenty or so in a tank-top undershirt held a chubby young Latin woman clamped in a choke hold. Sweat pasted the pale hair to his scalp. His eyes had an unnatural glitter. His free hand gripped the handle of a spring-blade knife. The point pricked a spot on the woman's brown neck, bringing a bright bead of blood.

  "Drop it," Kettering ordered. "Let the woman go."

  "Fuck you, motherfucker."

  "Put the knife away, asshole, or you're dead meat."

  Diaz edged back toward the doorway. "Come on, Brian." Procedure was clear in this situation. Get out, secure the area, call for backup, wait it out.

  "Motherfuckers, get out of my way or I slice up the bitch."

  The woman started whimpering. "Don' let him hurt me. I din' know he was crazy. Make him lemme go."

  The man twisted the knife, gouging a chunk out of the woman's plump brown neck. She squealed. A rivulet of blood crawled down over her collarbone.

  Kettering thumbed back the hammer of his piece.

  "Brian, come on," Diaz said.

  "I'll cut her, man. I mean it."

  "He means it," Diaz said, muscles tense, his eyes on Kettering.

  Nerves jumped in Kettering's jaw. His fingers whitened as he gripped the revolver.

  "I'm going to blow this asshole away."

  The knife dug in a little deeper. The woman's eyes popped.

  "Brian," Diaz growled between clenched teeth.

  After a long, agonizing moment Kettering relaxed a notch and backed toward the open doorway. With an audible sigh Diaz followed him out. The man inside kicked the broken door shut in their face. A chain lock rattled into place.

  "I could have taken him," Kettering said.

  "Oh, shit yes. He would have cut her throat before he died. The asshole was stoned out of his mind. You could see that."

  "He's going to kill her anyway. He has the look."

  "It's not the Screwdriver."

  "Not unless he's bleached his hair, lost twenty pounds, and traded his tool for a switchblade."

  "I'll cover up here while you call in."