The Vision (13 page)

“How many will he kill?” Osterman asked.

“I’m not sure.”

She was so
cold,
colder than could be accounted for by the California winter day and the wind, cold in the pit of her stomach, cold in her heart. She was wearing a stylish but thinly lined calfskin coat from North Beach Leather. She wished she’d chosen her heaviest fur.

“Maybe I’ll be able to stop him before he kills anyone else,” she said.

“You feel a responsibility to stop him?” Osterman asked.

“I won’t have peace of mind until I do.”

“Wouldn’t want this talent you’ve got.”

“I never asked for it,” she said.

A truck rumbled by in the street. Osterman waited for the noise to die down.

“King’s Point used to be in my jurisdiction,” he said. “Two years ago they voted in their own police force. Now I can’t poke my nose in unless they ask. Or unless a case that starts in the county ends up on their doorstep.”

“I wish I could be working with you,” Mary said.

“You’ll be working with a jackass,” Osterman said.

“Excuse me?”

“Chief of police at King’s Point. Name’s Patmore. John Patmore. A jackass. He gives you trouble, tell him to call me. He kind of respects me, but he’s still a jackass.”

“We’ll use your name if we have to,” Mary said. “But we aren’t entirely without influence down there. We know the owner of the
King’s Point Press.”

Osterman smiled. “Lou Pasternak?”

“You know him?”

“Damned good newspaperman.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Quite a character, too.”

“A little bit of one,” she agreed.

The sheriff offered his hand to Mary, then to Max. “Hope you two do my job for me this time.”

“Thanks for your help,” Max said.

“Don’t hesitate to ask for more if you need it. It’s been my pleasure.”

As Mary got into the Mercedes, a gust of wind sang in the power lines overhead.

 
 
They reached King’s Point at two-thirty in the afternoon. Their first glimpse of it, as they topped a rise in the road, was from high above the harbor.

The sky was low. Thick gray clouds scudded inland. A mile offshore the ocean was shrouded in mist
_;
and closer to the beach formidable waves churned beneath half a dozen scuba-suited sur fers, fell frothily onto the sand, and exploded into spray against the stone breakwaters on both sides of the harbor entrance.

The town was on the Pacific Coast Highway, a few miles south of Laguna Beach, in a perpetually smogless pocket of sunshine and money. The sun was in hiding today, but the money was everywhere evident. Houses on the verdant hillsides were priced from $75,000 to $500,000, nearly all of them with well manicured decorative gardens and ocean views. Waterfront homes with docks were not as expensive as those in Newport Beach, but real estate brokers had no time for would-be customers who flinched at a base price of a quarter million dollars. In the flat land between harbor and hills the houses were cheaper—there were some apartment buildings, too—but even they were expensive by most standards.

The travel guides said that King’s Point was “charming” and “quaint” and “picturesque,” and for once they were telling the truth. The lawns were lush and green
_;
the many small parks were filled with palms of all varieties, oleander, jade plants, magnolia trees, schefflera, dracaena, olive trees, and seasonal flowers. The houses were well cared for, freshly painted every year or two as protection against the corrosive sea air. Businessmen were required to forgo the most offensive neon signs, and were forbidden by law to paint their stores in anything but soft natural tones.

The residents of King’s Point appeared to think that with the proper local ordinances they could keep out everything that made the rest of the world a less desirable place to live. And they did keep out much that was tasteless, cheap, and gaudy.

But they can’t keep out everything they don’t want, Mary thought. A killer has come in from outside. He’s walking among them now. They can’t use local ordinances to keep out death.

From spring through early autumn the population of King’s Point was sixty percent higher than in the winter. During these vacation months the motels were booked weeks in advance, the restaurants raised their prices except for locals who were recognized, the shops hired extra help, and the white beaches were crowded. Now, two days before Christmas, the town was quiet. When Max turned off the main highway onto a city street, they encountered very little traffic.

King’s Point Police Headquarters was a single-story brick building of absolutely no architectural period, style, charm, integrity, or responsibility. It looked like an oversized, flat-roofed storage shed with windows. Even three blocks from the harbor, in the flats below the hills, in a limbo between the highest-value real estate parcels—wa—terfront and view—it was no credit to its neighborhood.

Inside, the public reception room was depressingly institutional: brown tile floor, muddy green walls, washed-out green ceiling, strictly utilitarian furniture. Tax money had purchased three desks, six-drawer filing cabinets, IBM typewriters, a copier, a small refrigerator, a United States flag, a glass-fronted case full of riot guns and pistols, a dispatcher’s corner with radio—and a civilian secretary (Mrs. Vidette Yancy, according to the name plate on her desk) who was in her fifties, a woman with tightly curled white hair, pale skin, bright red lipstick, and an enormous bosom.

“I’d like to see Chief Patmore,” Mary said.

Mrs. Yancy took a minute to correct a word she had just typed. “Him?” she said at last. “He’s out.”

“When will he be back?”

“The chief? Tomorrow morning.”

“Could you give us his home address?” Max asked, leaning against the formica counter that separated the foyer from the work area.

“His home address?” Mrs. Yancy said. “Surely. I can give you that. But he isn’t at home.”

“Where is he?” Mary asked impatiently.

“Where is he? Why, he’s up in Santa Barbara. He won’t be back until ten tomorrow morning.”

Mary turned to Max. “Maybe we should talk to a deputy.”

“Deputy?” Mrs. Yancy said. “There are five officers under the chief. Of course, only two of them are on duty right now.”

“If this guy’s like we’ve heard,” Max said, “it won’t do any good to talk to subordinates. He’ll expect to be dealt with directly.”

“Time’s running out,” Mary said.

“Don’t we have until seven o’clock tomorrow evening?” Max asked.

“If my vision’s accurate, we do.”

“Then if we see Patmore early tomorrow, that’ll be soon enough.”

“The officers on duty are out on patrol right now,” Mrs. Yancy said. “Did you want to report a crime?”

“Not exactly,” Mary said.

“Not exactly? Well, I have the forms right here, you know.” She opened a desk drawer, began to rummage through it. “I can take down the information and have an officer get back to you.”

“Never mind,” Max said. “We’ll be in tomorrow at ten o’clock.”

 
 
At the bay end of the harbor, valuable shoreline was occupied by commercial enterprises—yacht clubs, yacht sales offices, dry docks, restaurants, and shops. Each of these businesses was as clean and attractive and well maintained as the many expensive homes that lined both sides of the harbor channel.

The Laughing Dolphin was a restaurant and cocktail lounge that fronted on the harbor. On the second level a narrow open-air deck was suspended over the water. In good weather patrons could get pleasantly drunk while the sun warmed their faces. This afternoon the deck was deserted. Max and Mary had it to themselves.

Holding a mug of coffee laced with brandy, Mary leaned against the wooden railing.

If you stepped out of the brisk sea breezes, the day was only chilly
_;
but the wind from the ocean was downright cold. It nipped at her face and brought a healthy color to her cheeks.

When she looked up and to her right, she could see the Spanish Court, the hotel where she and Max had reserved a room. It stood on the north hill, high above the harbor. It was majestic, all white plaster and natural woods and red tile.

Closer to hand, eight dinghies were sailing in formation, snaking back and forth across the smooth slate-colored water. Against a backdrop of sixty-, eighty-, and hundred-foot sailing ships and motor yachts, the small vessels were lovely and amusing. Even today, without the sun upon them, their sails were dazzlingly white. Their graceful progress was a definition of serenity.

“Study the boats, the houses, the entire harbor,” Max said. “Maybe something you see will trigger the vision.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “It was knocked out of my mind forever when I woke up and found I was being shot at.”

“You’ve got to try.”

“Do I?”

“Isn’t that why you wanted to come?”

“If I don’t go after this killer,” she said, “he’ll eventually come after me.”

The wind gusted suddenly, flapped Mary’s leather coat against her legs, rattled the large plate-glass windows of the cocktail lounge behind them.

She sipped her coffee. Tentacles of steam writhed across her face and dissolved in the wintry air.

Max said, “Maybe it’ll help if you tell me again how it’s going to happen.” When she didn’t answer, he coaxed her. “Tomorrow night at seven o’clock. Not too far from where we’re standing right now.”

“Within a couple of blocks,” she said.

“You said he’ll come with a butcher knife.”

“Lingard’s knife.”

“Some knife, anyway.”

“Lingard’s,” she insisted.

“You said he’ll stab two people.”

“Yes, two.”

“Kill them?”

“Maybe one of them.”

“But not the other.”

“At least one will live. Maybe both.”

“Who are these people he’ll stab?”

“I don’t know their names,” she said.

“What do they look like?”

“I couldn’t see their faces.”

“Young women, like in Anaheim?”

“I really don’t know.”

“What about the high-powered rifle?”

“I saw it in the vision.”

“He’s got a butcher knife and a gun?”

“After he’s stabbed those two people,” she said, “he’ll take the rifle up into a tower. He intends to shoot everyone.”

“Everyone?”

“A lot of people, as many as he can.”

At the far end of the harbor, a dozen sea gulls kited in from the ocean, riding very high on the wind, white feathers silhouetted dramatically against the stormy sky.

“How many will he kill?” Max asked.

“The vision ended before I could see.”

“Which tower will he use?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look around,” Max said. “Look at each one of them. Try to sense which it will be.”

To her right, three hundred yards farther around the bend of the harbor’s bay end and five hundred yards from the Laughing Dolphin, the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity lay one block from the waterfront. She had been inside it once. It was a brooding Gothic structure, an impressive fortress of weathered granite and darkly beautiful stained glass windows. The hundred-foot bell tower, which had a low-walled open deck directly beneath its peaked roof, was the highest point within two blocks of the harbor.

The sound of sea gulls distracted her for a moment. Above the formation of sailboats that were playing follow the leader, still soaring inland, the gulls began to squeal with excitement. Their sharp voices were like fingernails scraped across a blackboard.

She tried not to hear the birds, concentrated on Trinity. She received nothing. No images. No psychic vibrations. Not the vaguest premonition that the killer would strike out at King’s Point from Trinity’s bell tower.

St. Luke’s Lutheran Church was between Mary and the Church of the Holy Trinity. It was two hundred yards north and a half a block from the harbor. It was a Spanish-style building with massive carved oak doors, and a bell tower slightly more than half as high as the one at the Catholic church.

Nothing from St. Luke’s either.

Just the ghostly wind and the cries of agitated sea gulls.

The third tower was to her left, two hundred yards away, at the edge of the water. It was only four stories high, part of Kimball’s Games and Snacks, a clapboard and cedar-shingled pavilion that housed an amusement arcade. In the summer camera-laden tourists climbed to the top and took photographs of the harbor. Now the place was closed for the season, quiet, empty.

“Will it be Kimball’s tower?” Max asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It could be any of them.”

“You’ve got to try harder,” he said.

She closed her eyes and concentrated.

Screeching angrily, a gull swooped down, flashed past their faces with only eight or ten inches to spare.

Mary jumped back in surprise, dropped her coffee mug.

“You okay?” Max asked.

“Startled. That’s all.”

“Did it touch you?”

“No.”

“They don’t dive that close unless you trespass on their nesting grounds. But there’s nowhere around here they’d lay eggs. Besides, it’s not the time of year for that.”

The dozen gulls that had entered the harbor a few minutes ago were circling overhead. They weren’t taking advantage of the wind currents as gulls usually do
_;
there was nothing lazy or graceful about their flight. Instead, they twisted and fluttered and soared and dived and darted frantically among one another within a tightly defined sphere of air. They seemed tortured. It was surprising that they didn’t collide. Screeching at one another, they performed an unnatural, frenzied dance in midair.

“What’s upset them?” Max wondered.

“Me,” she said.

“You? What did you do?”