The Night Crew

by John Sandford

  ‘‘Long time,’’ he said. ‘‘Did you get your head straight?’’

  ‘‘About some things,’’ she said. She stood on her tiptoes, gave him a peck on the lips, feeling guilty for not telling him that she was trolling for the killer. More guilty—this was odd—because he smelled kind of good. She said, ‘‘Creek’s walking around.’’

  ‘‘Excellent.’’ Harper, nice guy, seemed genuinely pleased. ‘‘Listen, I’ve had a few thoughts.’’

  ‘‘Let’s go around back. I’ve been itching to fire the gun again.’’

  His eyebrows went up: ‘‘Your violent streak is showing.’’

  She grinned at him: ‘‘I’ve just been carrying it everywhere, and . . . I don’t know, I’ve just got the urge to pull the trigger.’’

  Harper got the earmuffs and a couple of Coke cans and they walked side by side out to the gully. ‘‘We didn’t spend enough time with Catwell, Jason’s friend at Kinko’s,’’ he said. ‘‘I figured out this much: either it’s a coincidence that this killer shows up the day after Jason is killed, or . . .’’

  He waited for her to fill in the blank, but she couldn’t think of anything. ‘‘Or what?’’

  ‘‘Or,’’ he said, ‘‘it’s not. A coincidence.’’

  ‘‘Gosh. You’re just like Einstein.’’

  He held up a finger, his face serious: ‘‘Listen. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Maybe it is—I’ve got some ideas about that, too—but I don’t think so. So let’s take them one at a time.’’

  ‘‘Go ahead.’’

  ‘‘If it’s not a coincidence, then the killer fixed on you between the time you picked up Jason, and the time Jason ran off.’’

  ‘‘Okay.’’ She was amused by his lawyerly dissection.

  ‘‘In that time, you only did two things,’’ he said. ‘‘You went to the animal rights raid and you went to where Jacob was. So you probably picked up the guy at one of those places. We’ve assumed it was with Jacob, because of the drugs. We were probably wrong.’’

  Anna frowned, took the pistol out of her jacket pocket, flicked out the cylinder, spun it once, looking at the little undimpled primers. ‘‘We talked to two guys, really, at the animal rights raid,’’ she said, snapping the cylinder shut. ‘‘One of them was wearing a mask, but he had this voice. I was thinking, maybe someday he could go on TV. Jesus, this guy—it could be him! I mean, he was a little strange, his attitude, I didn’t pay much attention because we run into lots of strange people . . .’’

  ‘‘All right,’’ Harper said. ‘‘Where do we look him up?’’

  ‘‘I don’t know—Jason was the contact. But I could find out.’’

  Harper was absently juggling the empty Coke cans: ‘‘Okay. But before we get too enthusiastic . . . you said there were two guys at the animal rights raid.’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ she nodded, thinking about it. ‘‘The other one, he was just a kid, kind of wimpy.’’

  Harper found a dirt ledge for the cans, and set them up. ‘‘I saw him on TV—you mean the kid who tried to fight them off.’’

  ‘‘Not a violent type, like me,’’ Anna said. ‘‘He was crying about getting a bloody nose.’’

  ‘‘Doesn’t sound like our guy,’’ Harper agreed. He pointed at her plastic muffs: ‘‘Pull down your earmuffs, you’re too young to lose your hearing.’’

  Harper stuck his fingers in his ears, and Anna pulled down the earmuffs and pointed the gun at one of the cans. Then a thought struck her and she pulled the muffs back and said, ‘‘I just thought of something else.’’

  ‘‘Yeah?’’ He took his fingers out of his ears.

  ‘‘Creek noticed that there was only one guy on the raid, all the rest were women. And they were, I don’t know, kind of busty . Creek said it looked like a harem.’’

  ‘‘So maybe the guy’s a freak.’’

  ‘‘God . . .’’ She pulled the muffs down again, and Harper stuck his fingers back in his ears and Anna pointed the pistol at the first can, jerked the trigger. She missed by two feet.

  ‘‘Settle down,’’ she said aloud. She relaxed, brought the pistol up, fired again and the can flipped up the dirt wall, and clattered back down again, a neat hole punched in the center of the white C-for-Coke. Anna pulled the muffs up and said, ‘‘I just thought of something else: He had this pig and it knocked him down . . .’’

  ‘‘I saw that,’’ Harper said. ‘‘He must’ve been humiliated.’’

  ‘‘Yeah.’’ She pulled the muffs back down, emptied the gun. She hit the cans twice more, and the rest of the shots were bunched around them.

  ‘‘You ain’t going to the Olympics,’’ Harper said, as she shucked the empty shells out. ‘‘But they’d all hit between the nipples.’’

  ‘‘That’s all I need,’’ she said, reloading. She stopped with a shell still in the palm of her hand and said, ‘‘You said if it wasn’t a coincidence, all of this starting—you said you had some ideas about that, too.’’

  ‘‘One thing at a time,’’ Harper said.

  She pushed the last shell home. ‘‘Let’s go find this guy.’’

  Louis found him, running down names on the letterhead press release.

  ‘‘His name is Steven Judge. He and two or three more of them live at what they call the Full Heart Sanctuary Ranch, and it’s not far from where you are,’’ Louis said. ‘‘It’s up in Ventura, just on the other side of the Santa Susanas.’’

  ‘‘Half an hour,’’ Harper said, when Anna told him. He glanced at his watch: ‘‘We’ve got time.’’

  The countryside of Southern California was rarely empty, not this close to L.A. and the coast, but the Full Heart Ranch was on a gravel road up a washed-out dirt canyon, about as isolated a place as could be found. The sign at the entrance to the canyon was neat and businesslike, a metal plaque that said, ‘‘Full Heart Ranch,’’ and below that, in smaller letters, ‘‘Animal Sanctuary.’’ A hundred feet up the trail was another sign, this one resembling the signs in national forests, yellow burnt-in letters on brown-painted boards: ‘‘Welcome. Please register at the ranch house. Do not leave your car before registering—some of our animals are sensitive to the scent of humans.’’

  ‘‘Probably got tigers out there,’’ Harper said. ‘‘And when they say ‘humans,’ they mean, ‘meat.’ ’’

  ‘‘Probably,’’ Anna said.

  The canyon was a tangle of brush, with an occasional glimpse of trails leading through it; they crossed a low ridge on the way up, and saw the ranch house just below them, in a bowl. A half-dozen outbuildings surrounded the main house, and three cars faced the front of it.

  ‘‘Pretty nice spread,’’ Harper said.

  ‘‘The way this kid looked, the way he acted—he might have some money,’’ Anna said.

  ‘‘You think he owns the place?’’

  Anna shrugged: ‘‘He was the boss that night.’’

  They parked the car, stepped out, and looked around: They could hear an odd goatlike sound, and they both stepped off to the right to look past the house. A tall, fuzzy-headed animal looked at them over the top of a high board fence, pursed its lips, made the noise again.

  ‘‘A camel?’’

  ‘‘A llama,’’ Anna said.

  A door banged, and a woman in jeans, a Western shirt and cowboy boots came out onto the ranch house porch. She looked like a ranch woman, in her early forties, with wide shoulders, a round, moon face, deeply tanned with a scattering of freckles. Her sandy hair was pulled back in a ponytail. ‘‘Can I help you?’’

  ‘‘Yeah, hi,’’ Anna said. ‘‘We were just looking at your llama. Where’d you get him?’’

  ‘‘We . . . found him,’’ the woman said, pleasantly. ‘‘He was rather badly abused, or, rather, neglected. The former owner had ideas about breeding llamas. When it didn’t work out, he just turned him out and left him in the desert. He would’ve died, if one of our members hadn’t found him.’’

  �
�‘Terrific,’’ Anna said cheerfully. Harper followed her as she walked up on the porch. ‘‘My name is Anna Batory, and this is my friend Jake Harper. We filmed the raid at the UCLA medical center and Steve mentioned the possibility of doing another piece. Is he around?’’

  The woman shook her head and said, ‘‘Steven,’’ and then said, ‘‘I’m sorry you missed him, but he should have told you that he wouldn’t be around. He won’t be back for another two weeks.’’

  ‘‘Where is he?’’ Anna asked. ‘‘Can I call him?’’

  ‘‘Sure—or, I think so. He’s up in Oregon, at the Cut Canyon Ranch. He went up there the day after the raid, to help organize it. And probably run the river a few times.’’

  ‘‘Cut Canyon?’’

  ‘‘Yes, it’s a new ranch that some people are putting together up there. They just got a phone . . . c’mon, I’ll get a number. I’m Nancy Daly, by the way, I’m the ranch forewoman.’’

  Harper said, ‘‘How do. Like the boots.’’

  ‘‘Genuine vinyl,’’ the woman said, smiling at him.

  They followed her inside, where another woman was working at a computer; the other woman turned and smiled briefly, then went back to her work. Daly said, ‘‘Steve has got that square chin and all those teeth. Somehow, it makes him seem a little more organized than he really is.’’ She was shuffling through the papers on her desk: ‘‘I don’t know, I don’t seem to have it. God, I’ve got to do something about this desk.’’

  ‘‘Think it’d be on directory assistance?’’ Anna asked.

  ‘‘Should be,’’ Daly said.

  ‘‘No problem,’’ Anna said. She took her cell phone out of her pocket, but the woman shook her head. ‘‘We’re too far out. You can use ours. The area code, I don’t know, it’s probably in the phone book.’’

  ‘‘It’s five-oh-three,’’ Anna said. ‘‘I’ve got friends up there, they run a pottery.’’

  She dialed directory assistance, asked for a new listing for the Cut Canyon Ranch, got the number, and punched it in.

  ‘‘Cut Canyon.’’ Another woman.

  ‘‘Is Steve Judge there?’’

  ‘‘Yes, somewhere. Can I tell him who’s calling?’’

  ‘‘My name’s Anna Batory.’’

  ‘‘Hang on. I’ll put you on hold. I’ve got to go find him.’’

  ‘‘Okay,’’ Anna said.

  Harper asked Daly, ‘‘Does Steve . . . own this place, or what?’’

  ‘‘Oh, no,’’ Daly said. ‘‘His parents provided some seed money. Steve is active with the group, but he avoids bureaucratic entanglements, so to speak. He’s a little . . .’’ She looked at the other woman. ‘‘What is he, Laurie?’’

  Laurie never looked away from the screen. ‘‘Hippie,’’ she said.

  ‘‘Ah . . .’’

  At that moment, Judge came on the phone: ‘‘Yeah, Steve Judge.’’

  The voice wasn’t the killer’s—higher than she remembered, not squeaky, but nasal, rather than full. Anna looked at Harper and shook her head, as she said, ‘‘This is Anna Batory. I stopped by the ranch to see if we might put together another piece on this animal thing.’’

  ‘‘Oh!’’ Judge said. Then: ‘‘You know, I wasn’t too happy about the way the raid thing came out, I think it made me look foolish, with the pig and all.’’

  ‘‘Well—that happens. The stations cut the tape the way they want. We didn’t have anything to do with that,’’ Anna said.

  ‘‘Okay . . . I guess I’m willing to give it another shot,’’ Judge said. ‘‘We’re just finishing things up here, I was going to head back tonight. When do you want to get together?’’

  ‘‘Couple days, next week,’’ Anna said, now in no rush.

  But Judge rambled on, eager to make another movie. ‘‘The neatest thing we’ve got right now is a vet who’s made a specialty out of fixing bird wings,’’ he said. ‘‘We’re gonna start rehabilitating raptors, you know, hawks, eagles. You can’t just fix them up and let them go. You have to rehab the wings; people shoot these poor birds . . .’’

  She let him go, throwing in a couple of questions about the raid, until she was sure it was really him. When she was sure, she looked at Harper and shook her head.

  ‘‘Damn it, I thought he was a possibility,’’ Anna said, as they went down the road from the ranch. The afternoon was sliding into the evening.

  ‘‘Might still be—could be something tricky going on.’’

  ‘‘I suppose,’’ Anna said. But she yawned and shook her head. The morning—when she crunched down that highway cut and looked at China Lake—seemed half a lifetime back. She yawned and said, ‘‘Let’s go see Creek.’’

  ‘‘Fuckin’ vinyl cowboy boots,’’ Harper said. ‘‘You show me a woman who wears vinyl cowboy boots and I’ll show you a woman whose . . .’’ He trailed off, glanced at Anna, and then concentrated on the road ahead.

  ‘‘Whose what?’’ Anna demanded.

  ‘‘Never mind,’’ Harper said.

  Anna took the phone out of her pocket and tried it; still out of range. ‘‘Wait’ll we get over the hill,’’ Harper suggested. ‘‘Two minutes.’’

  Two minutes, and they were back in range: She had a message waiting, but called Louis and asked him to locate the other kid at the animal raid. Then she punched in the message, and got Wyatt’s voice.

  ‘‘We’ve got a proposition for you,’’ he said. ‘‘Call me.’’

  ‘‘Wyatt,’’ she said to Harper. ‘‘He’s got a proposition.’’

  Wyatt was in the office: ‘‘Things are gonna get out of control pretty soon,’’ he said, his voice tinny in the little phone. ‘‘We haven’t had an O.J. case or anything else for the media assholes.’’

  ‘‘Excuse me?’’ Anna said.

  ‘‘. . . Uh, sorry. Anyway, this whole thing is gonna leak, two days, three days, maximum,’’ he said. ‘‘So one of the task force guys came up with a proposition: We’ve got a couple of undercover guys who are pretty good with video cameras, they do a lot of surveillance. So you check one of these guys out, and then you go out on the street with him. He could fill in for your friend, Creek. And we put a net around you.’’

  ‘‘Huh. Not bad. Let me talk to Jake about it.’’

  ‘‘There’d be a chance we could spot the guy,’’ Wyatt said. ‘‘We’d have an undercover video van covering you and even if nothing happens, we could analyze every face in every crowd, every place you go. If he’s tracking you, we could spot him.’’

  ‘‘Let me talk to Jake.’’

  ‘‘Okay, but we want to go tonight—four hours from now.’’

  Harper was adamant: ‘‘No! No fuckin’ way. They’re so desperate they’re willing to turn you into a bull’s-eye.’’

  ‘‘When you were working homicide, did you ever use a civilian as a decoy?’’

  ‘‘Only once or twice and it didn’t do any good,’’ Harper said. ‘‘And the situations were really limited, we weren’t out roaming around trying to find a psycho.’’

  ‘‘Did you have a relationship with either of those women? Were they women?’’

  ‘‘Yeah, they were women, and of course not, I didn’t mess with people in investigations.’’

  ‘‘So you used them,’’ Anna said. ‘‘Do you think your change in attitude might have something to do with the fact that we’re working on a relationship?’’

  She was so silky with the question that Harper glanced at her and said: ‘‘Shut up.’’ And a moment later, ‘‘You’re stupid.’’

  Anna laughed, and said, ‘‘I hope Creek’s awake.’’

  Creek was awake, eating a bowl of raspberry Jell-O and arguing with Pam Glass, who looked more tired than Creek. When Anna and Harper walked in, Glass said, ‘‘God, am I glad to see you. This nitwit is talking about going home in the morning.’’

  Creek was sitting up in bed, still plugged into the saline drip. He tried to look well. ‘‘I’m feeli
ng a hell of a lot better,’’ he said, in an unnaturally chipper voice.

  ‘‘What do the doctors say?’’ Harper asked.

  ‘‘If he keeps improving, maybe three days,’’ Glass said. ‘‘That’s the minimum. He’s talking about how his insurance runs out. I offered to help him, but he won’t take help.’’

  Creek looked embarrassed and Anna put a hand on her hip and said, ‘‘I bought the insurance, Creek. It ain’t runnin’ out.’’

  ‘‘So, I thought it might run out.’’

  Glass’s eyes narrowed: ‘‘You were lying to me.’’ ‘‘That’s what I thought,’’ Creek mumbled.

  Glass dropped in a chair. ‘‘I don’t even know why I hang around this place,’’ she said, wearily.

  ‘‘Jeez, Pam, take it easy . . .’’ Now Creek was worried.

  Glass looked at Anna and said, ‘‘Anything?’’

  ‘‘Your pal Wyatt wants her to be a target in some stupid decoy operation,’’ Harper said.

  ‘‘Decoy?’’ Now she was interested. ‘‘How would it work?’’

  Anna explained, and Glass nodded: ‘‘Could work.’’

  ‘‘That’s bullshit,’’ said Creek. He looked at Harper. ‘‘You can’t go along with this.’’

  ‘‘Of course not. I already told her how stupid it is . . .’’

  Anna was looking at Glass. ‘‘You think it could work?’’

  The other woman nodded. ‘‘Those guys are good. I’d go for it.’’

  Now it was Creek’s turn to be angry: ‘‘Pam, goddammit, you don’t know what you’re doing. This guy’s a psycho.’’

  ‘‘If we thought he was going to shoot her with a sniper rifle, then I’d be against it,’’ Glass said. ‘‘But he seems to want to get his hands on her. These guys who’ll be with her—they’re tough guys. He won’t take Anna away from them.’’

  Anna told Creek and Glass about the abortive trip to the Full Heart Ranch, and her talk with Steve Judge.

  ‘‘I hadn’t thought of that guy, but now that you bring him up—there’s something about him. I think he needs a closer look,’’ Creek said.