The young policeman took the time to look at Kettering's badge, then relaxed. "You beat the lieutenant here."
"Good. Where's Al?"
Orkney hesitated. "He, uh, was your partner, wasn't he?"
"That's right. Where is he?"
"Around the side of the house. It's pretty bad, Sergeant."
"I've seen bad before. Show me."
Orkney led him around between Diaz's house and the neighbor's. Al Diaz lay on the lawn he would never mow again, halfway between the house and the tall laurel hedge that marked the edge of his property. Another uniformed cop and a couple of night-shift detectives stood around the body while Wilson Buckner, a young black man from the coroner's office, knelt beside it.
Kettering walked over and looked down at his dead partner and friend. The night turned colder. The back of Al's white terry-cloth robe was stained red and there were four dark holes. The detective's arms were outflung, palms down on the grass. His feet were bare.
Finally Kettering looked at what he did not want to see. The face. The eyes were open and bulging. Tiny blood vessels had popped in the corneas. The eyes had no business looking up the way they were while Diaz's body lay on its stomach. The mouth gaped. The tongue lay pale and swollen against the lower lip. Diaz's healthy brown complexion was a sallow green under the floodlights.
"Oh, shit," Kettering said.
Buckner looked up at him. He had not been in the business long enough to act casual in the presence of violent death. His eyes showed an inner pain and sensitivity that would either die or eventually make him unfit for the job.
"First one like this I've ever seen," he said.
"What happened?" Kettering kept his voice level and his jaw tight.
"Near as I can tell without getting him on the table, is somebody held him by the shoulder and twisted his head around backwards. The massive discoloration around the neck means there's heavy tissue damage internally." Buckner's emotions forced him out of the medical jargon. "Motherfucker crushed the guy's larynx and broke his neck. Probably snapped the spinal cord too."
"Could one man do that?"
"In my opinion, no. A big strong man could do it to a weak little boy, maybe, or a frail woman. But this guy was in top physical shape. You can see where something clamped onto him by the wounds on his shoulders."
"What makes wounds like that?"
"Claws." Then quickly Buckner added, "Damned if I know," to show he was not seriously considering that.
"Ugly," Kettering said. Instinctively his eyes ranged over the scene, the house, the floodlit lawn, the hedge with its shadowy recesses. Nothing was there that did not belong, but in his mind he saw a tall, hunch-shouldered figure with long, taloned arms.
"Better believe it," said Buckner. "There's also scratches on his face and around the top of his head where he was grabbed. Ugly is the word." He stood up and brushed off his pants. "He was your partner, wasn't he?"
"Yeah. He was my partner."
"Sorry."
"Everybody gets dead."
The young morgue assistant frowned, shook his head, and returned his attention to the body.
Kettering turned to Page Youngman, the night-shift detective who stood by, looking angry and oddly embarrassed, as though this was not the way a cop was supposed to die.
"Got any witnesses yet?"
"Nobody. This neighborhood goes to bed early. Nobody woke up."
"How'd it happen?"
"The wife heard something outside, Al came out for a look. Whatever it was, I guess he found it. He got his piece out, popped four caps. No sign he hit anything."
"Where's the wife?"
"Inside. Quinlan's with her."
Kettering nodded to the detective and the coroner's man and walked back to the house.
Michi Diaz sat on the couch in the living room between their two boys. She had an arm around each of them. The boys' faces were pale and tear-streaked, but they were not crying now. Officer Rose Quinlan, a freckled, competent cop, sat in another chair, which had been pulled close to the couch. Michi looked up when Kettering came in.
"Hi, Brian. I thought you were out of town."
"I just got back."
"Hell of a thing, isn't it?"
"Hell of a thing," he agreed.
The tiny woman put on a smile for her sons. The boys looked groggy and confused. Michi hugged them to her for a moment. "You guys ought to be in bed."
"How about some hot chocolate, boys?" said Rose Quinlan. To Michi: "You have hot chocolate?"
Michi put a hand to her forehead. "Yes, it's in the ... in the ..."
"I'll find it," said the policewoman. She took the one of the boys by each hand and led them out of the room toward the kitchen.
Michi tried to recapture the smile for Kettering, but her composure broke. With a small cry she jumped up from the couch and ran into his arms. He held the tiny wife of his partner and let her cry.
"What happened to him, Brian?" Michi said, not looking up. "Who did it? Why?"
"I can't answer any of those questions," Kettering said. "But I will."
Gradually Michi's sobs eased. She stepped back and looked up at Kettering with huge black eyes. "You'll get him, won't you, Brian?"
"I'll get him," he said. "You can count on it."
"When you do ... kill him."
Kettering let his eyes answer for him.
Michi drew in a deep breath and pressed her palms together as though in prayer. She closed her eyes, and when she reopened them, her face was composed. She smiled softly. "Can I get you something? Coffee? A beer?"
"No thanks," Kettering said. "Are you going to be all right?"
"I'll handle it," she said.
"You've got my new phone number?"
"Al has it ... had it."
He scribbled the number on the back of one of his cards and handed it to her. "Call me. Any time. For any reason."
"Thank you," she said. "I'd better see if they found the hot chocolate."
Kettering watched Michi straighten her back as she walked out of the room, then turned and started for the door. Before he reached it, Lieutenant Ivory came in looking angry and still rumpled from sleep.
"What are you doing here, Kettering? You're on suspension."
"Al was my partner."
"Well ..." Ivory looked uncomfortable. "Don't interfere with the investigation."
"I was just leaving."
As Kettering started out the door, the lieutenant held him with a hand on the shoulder.
"Brian, I'm sorry. It's bad business when a cop goes down, it's worse when he's your partner. I wish there was something I could say."
"I know, Lieutenant."
"You'll be wanting to come back on duty, I guess."
"Pretty soon," Kettering said. "There are a couple of things I have to take care of first."
The lieutenant eyed him suspiciously. "What things? Brian, you're not going to go Dirty Harry on me? I can't have freelancers screwing up the investigation."
"Personal things, Lieutenant."
Ivory gave him a long look, squeezed his shoulder and let him pass.
Kettering walked back out across the well-tended lawn to the street. He made his way through the lights and the cops and the ambulance men to where his car was parked. He looked back toward his partner's house once, then got in and drove away.
Chapter 18
Kettering drove back from the neat little house where his partner lay dead to his new apartment. He made the return trip much more slowly than he had come. The sky in the east had lightened enough so he could see the dark outlines of the San Bernardino Mountains. It was a pretty sight, if anybody cared. Kettering did not.
His mind seethed and bubbled with plans unformed, action untaken, puzzles unsolved. His back teeth ached with the need to just do something. However, the rest of his body ached with weariness. His brain was mushy and unable to complete a thought.
His emotions said, Kill somebody!
His weary mind
said, Go home and go to bed, asshole.
Kettering went home.
***
The tiny eye on his answering machine stared at him red and unblinking. At least there were no more bad-news phone calls preserved on audio tape to be spilled like poison into his ear. He yanked the phone jack out of the machine and dropped it to the floor like a thin, dead snake. There would now be no jangling interruption of his rest.
He stripped off his clothes and let them fall where he stood. Wearing only his shorts, he cranked the convertible sofa out into the bed position and fell into it.
Outside, in somebody's backyard, a rooster crowed. An automatic garage door rumbled up. A motorcycle revved. Sounds of the Valley coming awake.
Kettering slept.
***
He came to suddenly and with that disoriented feeling that makes the armpits tingle for a few seconds. The walls and the furniture in the room were vague and unfamiliar. The slice of the day that showed between the window curtains was gray and impersonal. It could be any time, any place.
Where the hell am I?
The watch on his wrist, which he hadn't bothered to remove, told him it was just short of noon. A huge crow settled on the railing of the stairway outside his door and screeched. A sound like broken glass on a blackboard.
Kettering remembered where he was and why. And he remembered Al Diaz lying on his stomach in the neatly mowed grass of his lawn and looking up with dead, bloodshot eyes. Kettering would have liked to go back to sleep, but he knew he could not.
He took a long hot shower to wash the stink of travel and death off his body and out of his hair. He scrubbed his teeth until his gums hurt. He dressed in a soft blue shirt and gray cotton pants.
In the kitchen he filled a pan with water, put it on one of the gas burners, and stood by impatiently waiting for it to boil. He used the water to make a cup of instant coffee that helped him feel a little better. Just a little. It also made him hungry.
Abruptly he remembered the phone call from Charity last night. The call he had forgotten and never answered after he heard the voice of his dead friend. I miss you, she had said. Well, damn it, he missed her too. Right now he could not think of anyone he would rather be with.
He dug her card out of his wallet and reached for the telephone. The line was dead. Remembering, he plugged the little jack into the side of the instrument. It rang.
Kettering snatched his hand hack as though the thing had struck at him. It rang again. He picked it up.
"Hello."
"Bri? Are you all right?"
The sound of his wife's voice brought an unexpected tightening around the stomach muscles. An irrational cramp of guilt because he was about to call another woman? Ridiculous.
"I'm fine, Mavis."
"I've been calling all morning. Kept getting a busy signal."
"There was some trouble with the line," he said.
"Bri, I ... I'm really sorry about Al."
"You heard?"
"Lieutenant Ivory called me. It was on the news this morning too."
"Oh, great. With pictures?"
"I don't know I just heard it on the radio."
"Yeah, well, cops die."
There was a moment's silence on the line. Kettering heard his wife's familiar little sigh of exasperation.
"I hate it when you do that John Wayne thing," she said. "I know how close you and Al were, and I can guess how you must be feeling now. Why don't you let it out for once?"
"Mavis, this is a lousy time to get into that old argument."
"Right. I'm sorry. I'm not thinking too clearly. So. How's the new place?"
"Livable."
"Are you going to stay there?"
"I don't know. For now."
"I see."
There was an uncomfortable space where neither of them spoke. Finally Mavis said, "I'm sorry about us too, Bri."
"Yeah, well, things don't always work out the way we want them to."
He could hear her draw a deep breath on the other end of the line. "Things weren't working with us for a long time. We both know that."
"So it seems."
"It was bad long before ... before the other night."
"Sure. So are you moving in with the Wister woman?"
"Yes."
The single syllable hit him like a fist in the gut. He had thought he was being sarcastic.
"I know what you're probably thinking," she went on. "I can guess the names you want to call me. But it doesn't matter anymore."
"Do I have to hear this now?" he said.
"You'll have to hear it sometime. I'm not asking you to understand or forgive, or anything like that. I just want you to hear me. I've found something with Gabrielle that I never thought I would have. And I don't intend to lose it."
"Uh-huh." It was all Kettering could manage with his throat all tightened up and the taste of bile in his mouth.
"We'll talk about it later. When you're ready. There are arrangements we'll have to make about the house and the furniture, but for now I'm just going to close it up. Is there anything you want?"
"My chair."
A faint, familiar smile edged her voice. "I figured that. I've already arranged to have it delivered to you."
Kettering closed his eyes and swallowed a couple of times. "Thanks."
"C.O.D., of course."
"Of course."
"Well, Bri, I guess that's it."
"I guess so."
"I really am sorry about Al. Do you think I should call Michi?"
"I think she'd appreciate it."
"There's one more problem I have to bother you about, then I'll leave you alone."
"Let's hear it."
"Trevor. He didn't come home last night."
"It's not the first time, is it?"
"Well, no, but considering the way things are with you and me, I thought he'd want to stay around."
"Where did he go?"
"Where he's been hanging out lately. The Pit."
"He's working there, isn't he?"
"Yes, but not all night. He's always come home."
"Did you call his friends?"
"The ones I know haven't seen him for weeks. He's been running with a new crowd. People he's met at The Pit. And I don't know any of them."
"I'll look into it."
"Thanks. Call me if you learn anything."
"Sure. You'll be at ..." He couldn't get it out.
"At Gabrielle's. Do you have her number?"
"I've got it."
"Well ... all right, then. Talk to you later."
"See you."
With that exchange of banalities they hung up. Closing the book on nineteen years of marriage. To Kettering it seemed disappointingly flat. There should be shouting, recriminations, tears, shouldn't there?
He sat next to the silent telephone, absently wiping the palm of his hand against his pants leg. Outside the sky was leaden. It was starting off to be another bad, bad day.
Enough moping, he decided, and dialed Charity Moline's number.
She answered on the first ring, her voice low, eager, anxious.
"Hi," he said.
"Brian. Thank goodness. I tried to call but got a busy signal all morning. What did you do, unplug your phone?"
"Yeah."
"You sound down. Bad news?"
"Bad. Al Diaz got killed last night."
"Oh no. What happened?"
"Somebody ... something twisted his head around backwards."
There was a sharp intake of breath from Charity. "Brian, I'm sorry. You two were pretty close, weren't you?"
"Yeah." He shifted the subject along with the tone of his voice. "You hungry?"
"I can always eat."
"You don't look it."
"A lucky metabolism. I have a Godzillian appetite."
"I'll pick you up in half an hour."
"Did you learn anything on the trip back to Indiana?"
"I'll tell you about it over lunch."
***
Charity was waiting for him when he pulled up in front of her funky cottage in the hills behind Hollywood. She wore a full flowered skirt and a scoop-neck blouse, and hardly any makeup. She looked like a high school girl. Well, not one of today's high school girls, Kettering amended. That one would have half her head shaved and the other half moussed into spikes and be wearing a black leather mini over spandex tights. He preferred the way Charity Moline looked.
They went for lunch to one of the ubiquitous Mexican restaurants around Los Angeles where the busboys kept a watchful eye on the door for immigration officers. They ordered combination plates including refried beans, Spanish rice, enchiladas, and chili rellenos - L.A.-style Mexican food such as you would never find in Mexico. Kettering drenched his plate with fiery red salsa and ordered two bottles of Bohemia, an authentic Mexican beer that came with frosty cold mugs.
"So Indiana was a bust," Charity said when Kettering had given her his appraisal of the trip.
"Thanks to a lot of very peculiar circumstances, the trail of my sister Jessie's child ends when he was sixteen or so and his foster parents were murdered."
"Do you think he had something to do with their death?"
"I'd bet on it. Remember, this is no ordinary child."
"That's a fact."
"My guess is that the foster parents somehow found out what he really was, and to keep the secret, he killed them."
Charity was silent for a moment while she cleaned her plate. Finally she looked across the table at him and said, "Brian, what, exactly, do you think he was?"
Kettering finished his beer and signaled the waiter for two more. "What can I tell you? He was conceived under weird circumstances. I was just a little kid when I watched the business out in that field with my sister and the Greasers, but even then I knew something was happening that was not part of the normal world. Then his birth was bizarre, coming in an alley the way it did and leaving my sister beaten up and catatonic."
He fell silent while the waiter delivered fresh bottles of Bohemia. "Then there was the accident that killed my mother and knocked me into the twilight zone. I don't believe it was an accident."
Charity's eyes were bright, watching him.
"And you think all this is tied to your personal childhood boogeyman ... the Doomstalker."
"Wasn't it you who came up with the theory first?"
Gary Brandner Page 13
