The Night Crew

by John Sandford

‘‘No.’’ End of story.

  Clark’s car was still where he’d left it. ‘‘We could wait,’’ Harper said, glancing at his watch. ‘‘The shopping center closes in ten minutes. There’s a space we could watch from.’’

  Anna, once reluctant, was now curious: where’d he gone? She didn’t want to watch him, only to know. He’d walked into the shopping center and disappeared. Maybe he’d gotten inside and started jogging down toward the end, or pulled off his jacket and they’d missed him in scanning the crowd . . . Maybe he’d spotted them, and was hiding, because he didn’t want to meet her face to face.

  ‘‘Let’s wait—for a while. I’ll call Louis.’’

  They waited for more than an hour, slumped in the car, talking in a desultory way. Louis still hadn’t found anything on McKinley.

  After an hour, Harper called an end to it: ‘‘It’s after ten. Let’s go on back to your place, see if anything turned up.’’

  ‘‘All right. But, goddammit, Jake, we’re stuck.’’

  twenty-seven

  The lights were on in the living room, and Anna called, ‘‘Pam? Hello?’’

  But Glass had gone.

  ‘‘Got the house all to ourselves, my little potato dumpling,’’ Harper said, snagging her around the waist.

  Anna twisted in his hands, to face him, said, ‘‘Potato dumpling, my ass,’’ and he said, ‘‘No, definitely not your ass,’’ and she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.

  But now Harper was looking past her, toward the kitchen, and he said, ‘‘What’s that? In the kitchen.’’

  His voice carried a chill, and Anna turned again, and looked toward the kitchen. She didn’t see anything until he said, ‘‘On the floor.’’ A stain spread across the floor, as though somebody had spilled hot grape jam and left it to coagulate.

  Anna caught Harper’s chill, and pulled away and stepped toward the kitchen. ‘‘Careful,’’ he said, catching her, and she felt in her jacket pocket for the gun. They moved to the edge of the kitchen, and Anna reached inside and flipped on the light.

  The stain was the size of a large human hand; liquid, purple.

  ‘‘Blood,’’ Harper said. ‘‘Don’t go in. We might need crime scene.’’

  ‘‘Oh, Jesus, look at the window.’’ Harper looked at the window by the door. The plywood plug had been forced in, and only partly pushed back in place. ‘‘He’s got her,’’ Anna said. She grabbed Harper’s jacket sleeve: ‘‘He’s got her, Jake. He thought she was me.’’

  ‘‘Gotta call Wyatt, and gimme the gun,’’ Harper grunted. Harper started going through the house, opening doors, checking everything, Anna trailing behind. As they went, Anna ran through the phone’s memory, found Wyatt’s home number, pushed the call button. Wyatt answered, sleepily: ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘This is Anna: have you seen Pam?’’

  Wyatt was instantly alert, picking up the vibration in her voice: ‘‘No. What happened?’’

  ‘‘We came home, expecting to meet her here, but she wasn’t here. But it looks like somebody broke in through the back, and there’s blood on the kitchen floor.’’

  ‘‘Oh, Jesus Christ, you stay right there. Stay there!’’

  And he was gone.

  Anna punched in Creek’s number at the hospital. Creek was awake, but hadn’t seen Pam: ‘‘What’s happening, Anna?’’

  Anna explained, and Creek groaned, ‘‘Goddammit, I can’t move, I’m wired in here, I’m gonna get . . .’’

  ‘‘No,’’ Anna shouted. ‘‘You stay there. Maybe she’ll turn up. We gotta have somebody there . . . that’s where she’ll come.’’

  Two minutes later, a minivan screeched to a stop outside, and five seconds after that, a second one. Two plainclothes cops climbed out of each, milled for a second, then started for the door. Harper and Anna met them on the front porch: ‘‘You’re sure it’s blood?’’ the first man asked.

  ‘‘Pretty sure,’’ Harper said.

  ‘‘She left here a half hour ago, ten minutes after they got back,’’ the cop said. He looked at Anna. ‘‘She was driving your car, we figured it was all right—actually, we thought it was you.’’

  Another cop was kneeling in the kitchen. He sniffed the stain on the floor, and looked back at them: ‘‘It’s blood.’’

  ‘‘And there’s the window,’’ Anna said. She’d gone to the garage door, opened it. The garage was empty.

  ‘‘Maybe she’s okay, maybe she went out for something,’’ Anna said; but she didn’t believe it. She simply wanted someone else to believe.

  Harper looked at her and shook his head.

  ‘‘He didn’t get in here,’’ one of the other cops said, defensively. ‘‘We watched every goddamned car that came in here, and the only one that turned down the street was that Korean guy.’’

  ‘‘He didn’t come in a car,’’ Anna said. ‘‘He took my car, and there’s no other car out here. He snuck in.’’

  ‘‘How? We were watching people on the street; and how in the hell are you gonna sneak around in this place? All the houses are jammed asshole-to-elbow and everybody’s nervous about burglars and there’s no place to sneak from.’’

  They were still arguing when Wyatt arrived. He was wearing suit pants and a jacket over a striped pajama shirt, and carried a rumpled dress shirt and tie in his fist.

  He listened for two minutes, then said to Anna, ‘‘I thought about this on the way over. It’s gotta be somebody on the inside. Somebody here in Venice, probably on your street.’’

  ‘‘Inside?’’

  ‘‘Gotta be,’’ he said. He ticked off the points: ‘‘He killed a guy who claimed to be having a romance with you. Okay: that could come from simply following you around. But then he came here, and he just vanished. Then he went after your friend Creek, right down the street, and he got away again.’’

  ‘‘He went into his house,’’ Harper said.

  Wyatt nodded. ‘‘That would explain a lot,’’ Harper said.

  Anna was thinking furiously: God knows there were enough strange and troubled people in Venice; that was almost a qualification to owning a home there. But who?

  ‘‘So you mean the whole thing was a coincidence?’’ Harper asked. ‘‘That because it happened on the night my son died, and everything else . . . the animal raid and everything . . . we just made it up?’’

  Wyatt nodded. ‘‘It’s possible—or maybe he was following her that night, and something he saw set him off.’’

  Harper said, ‘‘So have your guys check the logs and find out who came out of here after Anna . . .’’

  They worked through it, but Anna kept hearing Harper’s word, ‘‘coincidence.’’ None of it felt like coincidence: the flow of her life had turned the night of Jason’s death. That felt like the beginning of something. To think that it had all started before then—maybe long before then, in the mind of one of her neighbors—just didn’t fit. Didn’t feel right.

  She stood up and said to Harper, ‘‘I’m gonna run next door and talk to Hobie and Jim. They’re up on the roof half the time, maybe they saw something . . . In fact, with

  everybody here, I bet they’re out on the roof now.’’

  She went out the back door, looked up: ‘‘Hobie? Jim? You guys up there?’’

  A second later, Hobie’s voice floated down: ‘‘What’s going on?’’

  ‘‘Trouble. Can you come down?’’

  ‘‘Be right there—out the back door.’’

  Anna met them in the dark space between their two houses, explained what had happened. Jim whistled and said, ‘‘I heard the garage door go up and down, but that was about it.’’

  Hobie said, ‘‘I didn’t even hear that.’’

  ‘‘I think you were making popcorn,’’ Jim said.

  ‘‘I’m sorry, Anna. Jesus, I hope the guy doesn’t do anything nuts.’’

  Anna turned back to the house. As she walked along the canal, just before she got to the steps on the back stoop,
she unconsciously lifted her foot over a heavy formed-concrete flowerpot. She’d cracked her foot on it thirty times, had always sworn to move it someday . . . and suddenly realized it was gone. Nothing there.

  People were fucking with her house . . .

  And Anna’s phone rang. She took it out of her pocket and was about to click it on, then stopped, looked at Harper: ‘‘It’s him. He wants me to hear her die.’’

  ‘‘Don’t answer,’’ Harper said, urgently. He turned to Wyatt-and said, ‘‘Are you still set up on her phone?’’

  ‘‘Yeah.’’

  ‘‘You gotta get this one,’’ Anna said. ‘‘I think he’s calling like he called with China Lake. Maybe . . .’’

  ‘‘Jesus.’’ They stared at the phone until the tone stopped.

  Wyatt began setting up a neighborhood search, and at the same time, sealing the area off. Harper took Anna aside and said, ‘‘We gotta tell them about Clark.’’

  ‘‘Not yet. Let’s find the kid. Jake, it can’t be Clark.’’

  ‘‘That sounds like wishful thinking . . . where’d he go tonight? Why’d he disappear?’’

  ‘‘We don’t know that he did. We probably just missed him. Wyatt thinks we’ve made most of this up—just put stuff together and come up with fantasy. That’s what we’ve done with Clark.’’

  ‘‘I still think . . .’’

  ‘‘Let’s concentrate on McKinley. Please.’’ She was begging him.

  ‘‘We don’t even know where he is, Anna,’’ Harper said in exasperation.

  Anna held up a hand. ‘‘Got an idea,’’ she said. ‘‘I should have thought of this before.’’

  She took the phone out and scrolled through to the Witch, and pushed the button. The Witch answered on the first ring.

  ‘‘This is Anna,’’ Anna said.

  ‘‘What’ya got?’’

  ‘‘A question. You know that kid that got in the fight with the animal activists? Nosebleed and all?’’

  ‘‘Yeah. But talk faster, I’m on a deadline.’’

  ‘‘You had him on a couple of talk shows.’’

  ‘‘Shit, he was on ‘Today,’ what do you mean, a couple talk shows . . .’’

  ‘‘All right, all right, but the day after the raid, you shot extra stuff on him. I need his address, where he lives, and a phone number.’’

  ‘‘Anna, I don’t have any time . . .’’

  ‘‘I need the fuckin’ numbers,’’ Anna shouted.

  ‘‘Hey . . .’’

  ‘‘Listen,’’ Anna said, urgently now, quieter. ‘‘Get somebody to dig the address and numbers up, and I’ll give you a lead on a story that’s better than the jumper. A freebie. And believe me, if you knew what it was, you’d kill your mother for it. I’m not joking: I’ll feed it to you in the next couple of days.’’

  After a moment of silence: ‘‘Anything to do with China Lake?’’

  Anna hesitated, then said, ‘‘Everything to do with China Lake, and she’s just the start.’’

  The Witch screeched, ‘‘This kid is in the China Lake killing?’’

  ‘‘No, no, for Christ’s sake, he didn’t have anything to do with it, that’s a different story. But I’ve got an inside thing on China Lake—a serial killer thing,’’ Anna said. ‘‘If you get McKinley’s address or phone number back to me, I’ll tip you the other story.’’

  ‘‘So what’s happening with McKinley?’’ the Witch asked suspiciously.

  ‘‘He’s fucking with me,’’ Anna said. ‘‘The miserable little shit. I’m gonna crucify him.’’

  ‘‘That sounds promising,’’ the Witch said. ‘‘I’ll have somebody look around.’’

  ‘‘Right now,’’ Anna said. ‘‘This is serious. I’m calling a couple more stations. The first one who gives me the address and phone number, I’ll give them the China Lake story.’’

  ‘‘You know, you can be a major pain in the ass.’’

  ‘‘Yeah, but a fairly cheap pain, considering what I deliver. So call me back.’’

  ‘‘Hold on, just hold on . . . I’m gonna put the phone down, I’ll be right back.’’

  Anna held on. Harper said, ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘Maybe something,’’ Anna said.

  The Witch was back: ‘‘You got a pencil?’’

  Wyatt, nearing panic, was sealing Venice.

  Anna, with McKinley’s phone number, and Louis tracking the address, told him they were going to look for a kid they’d interviewed the night of Jason’s murder.

  ‘‘You’ve got to stay in touch,’’ Wyatt said anxiously. ‘‘We’ll call you if we need you: If you get one ring, then one ring, then one ring on your phone, you know, fifteen seconds apart, answer the third one.’’

  ‘‘Okay,’’ Anna said, and they were gone.

  McKinley lived in a bleak cinder-block apartment in Culver City. The parking lot was beginning to break up, with weeds growing through it in patches. Harper parked in a handicapped spot and they took an exterior walkway up; the concrete corners in the stairwell smelled of urine. The walkway had steel railings, and wheelless bike frames were chained to the railings in front of half the doors.

  ‘‘Students,’’ Anna said.

  ‘‘It was three-thirty-seven?’’ Harper asked.

  ‘‘Yeah . . .’’

  The door faced a narrow inner-courtyard, with a halfdozen concrete picnic tables scattered down its length. A half-dozen student-age men sat at one of the tables, smoking, listening to music on a boom box, talking in Spanish.

  McKinley’s room was dark, the door locked.

  ‘‘Can’t kick it,’’ Harper said quietly. ‘‘Too many people, too much noise.’’

  ‘‘Let’s see if we can find a manager,’’ Anna said.

  The manager had a first-floor apartment facing the parking lot. A dark-eyed woman answered the door, spoke to them in a language that Anna thought might be Farsi, then waved her hands in a gesture that said, ‘‘Wait,’’ went back into the apartment and shouted something. Returning to the door, she made a ‘‘come in’’ gesture, pointed to the back and said another word. ‘‘I think she means somebody’s in the bathroom,’’ Harper said.

  The woman smiled and pointed a finger up: ‘‘Bat-room . . . yes.’’

  Anna nodded, looked around—and spotted the key board behind the open door. The woman was walking toward the back of the apartment again, and Anna said to Harper, ‘‘Block me out—I’m gonna see if I can grab a key.’’

  ‘‘What?’’

  ‘‘There’s a key board behind the door.’’

  Harper stepped sideways, and Anna pushed the door closed a few inches. Behind it, she could see the room numbers under wire pegs, most with keys hanging from them. Then a toilet flushed in the back, and the woman called something out to them.

  Harper said, ‘‘Thank you, thank you,’’ and Anna, still eclipsed by his body, pushed the door another few inches.

  The 337 peg held two keys.

  ‘‘Can I try for it?’’ she muttered.

  ‘‘She’s looking right at us,’’ Harper said, turning to her. ‘‘Hold on . . .’’

  Harper walked toward the woman, talking. ‘‘We wanted to talk to one of your renters.’’

  The woman said something else, jabbing her finger at the back. Anna watched, and as Harper got close to her, with the woman looking up at him, he stepped cleanly between them and Anna lifted the key.

  Dropped it. Stepped on it. Stood with her hands crossed in front of her as Harper and the woman stood jabbering at each other. Then a man’s voice said, ‘‘Hello,’’ and both

  Harper and the woman turned toward the back. Anna stooped and picked the key up, and put it in her jacket pocket. She stepped away from the door and the key board.

  Harper told the manager that he and Anna were friends of McKinley’s from UCLA, but weren’t sure they had the right apartment complex.

  ‘‘Yes, yes, he is here. Apartment three-thirty-seven,’’ t
he manager said, bobbing his head. ‘‘He has been much on the television, yes? You see him on the television? He’s a hero, yes?’’

  Anna, smiling. Bobbing her head: ‘‘Yes, a hero . . .’’

  Outside.

  ‘‘Get the key?’’

  ‘‘Got it.’’

  ‘‘Hope they don’t notice.’’

  ‘‘We’d have to be pretty unlucky—some of the apartments have two or three keys, some don’t have any.’’

  ‘‘Hope the key works.’’

  ‘‘Hope we don’t find a body.’’

  ‘‘Don’t even think it.’’

  The key worked. They stepped inside, and Anna flipped on the lights. ‘‘Hello? Charles? Chuck?’’ They were in the living room with a TV set, a love seat, an unmatched easy chair with a missing leg replaced by a paperback novel. An adjoining kitchen dining area was off to the right, and another door went to the left. Anna stepped quickly over to the door: A bedroom. A knot of sheets on a futon, but no blankets. The place smelled of Cool Ranch Doritos.

  ‘‘Let’s get through it quick,’’ Anna said. ‘‘You look for a Rolodex or address book or anything . . . I’ll just see what he’s got.’’

  ‘‘Got a phone number,’’ Harper said a minute later. ‘‘It’s on a refrigerator magnet. I think he uses it.’’

  ‘‘Okay. We can get it to Louis . . .’’

  Anna had instinctively gone to the bedroom. McKinley didn’t have a chest of drawers, and had built a group of shelves with bricks and unpainted pine boards. T-shirts, underwear and jeans were stacked on the shelves; a small closet held a couple of jackets, some oxford cloth shirts, two pairs of athletic shoes, one pair of worn-out loafers and dustbunnies the size of softballs.

  The futon was on a frame: she picked up the head end of it, looked underneath. A shoebox. She pulled the shoebox out, opened the lid, and found a half-dozen videotapes, all commercial, all pornographic.

  ‘‘What?’’ Harper asked, sticking his head in the door.

  ‘‘Porno,’’ Anna said. ‘‘A couple of bondage tapes. That might indicate a fantasy thing with capturing people.’’