Where Serpents Lie (Revised March 2013) (42 page)

“Be careful of the wee-wee,” he said. He expected security to lock onto him at this point. Things felt wrong.

“Come on, Lauren,” said the old gray-haired, idiotically dressed daddy boy.

Hypok moved toward the pet store. Another Lauren, he thought. Chloe, Lauren, Jessica, Joy, Tiffany, Charlie: when will Americans stop naming their daughters after perfumes?

On to the pet store now, Hypok carrying Loretta under his left arm, scanning the shoppers for Items—a little redheaded siren by the bookstore; a plump temptress walking with its plump mother, same chunky legs, a miniature version of the physical mold it’d come from; a sultry, pouting Item of perhaps twelve—too old, but that looked brazenly at him as he passed by and he caught the aroma of perfume and shampoo coming off it. Into the store, a brief notification of the clerk concerning his intentions, then to the collar rack, way down at the bottom where the smallest ones hung upon display hooks and he brought out a pink, a yellow and a blue for Loretta to sniff as if the tiny fool really cared what color she wore. He picked a light blue one that sort of fit, though a long piece of it protruded beyond the buckle when it was snug enough not to slip over and off Loretta’s head. He picked a leash to match it. In the food section he found a small box of puppy treats for very small dogs. At the cash register he paid with one of the twenties given to him by the harpy at the animal shelter, the bill a limp but direct descendant of the crisp hundreds paid to him by a perverted cop who couldn’t live without pictures of himself and girls not yet into puberty. What a world. The woman at the checkout counter was big and horsy looking, perhaps nineteen. When she smiled she looked like John Elway with long hair. She pet Loretta with an enormous freckled hand.

“She’s
so
cute.”

“For my daughter, Nan.”

The Denver QB stared hard at him. Ready to call an audible at the line, Hypok imagined.

“Are you on TV?” she asked Hypok.

“No, I’m in advertising. Billboards, actually.”

“You look like
some
one I know.”

“And you look like someone
I
know, too, but I can’t think who.”

“Probably that football player,” she said, smiling and looking down. “That’s what all the guys say, anyway.”

“Say good-bye, Loretta.”

“Loretta! That’s my mom’s name. ’Bye, Loretta!”

Back into the evening now, the darkness complete, the lights of the shops bright and alluring as diamonds, the dog collared and leashed, flouncing back and forth in front of him. Past the gleaming storefronts and the central courtyard, past the benches and the planters and the fish pond, through the booths again, winding through Fashion Island like a snake on a prowl, alert to danger and opportunity, attuned to every odor on the breeze and every nuance from the bodies of the mammals all around him, Hypok himself the head of the serpent, the ultraviolet eye, the heat pit sensor, the aroma-gathering tongue, the collating brain in a secret hunt among the privileged and prosperous, the harried and the careless, the vain and the ignorant, the innocent and the pure.

He stopped at the intermittent fountain, a kid pleaser at all times of the day and night. His brain panted.

Hypok receiving: two twelve-year-olds unattended and perilously brash looked his way with admiring eyes, old as they were it sent a ripple of electricity up his back. A tandem stroller for two-year-old twins in pink, just a hair too young. A petite Indian girl in a sari, dark and mysterious as the Ganges of which Hypok was reminded, picturing crocodiles taking down Hindu bathers in diapers and turbans.

Then, his senses all ratcheted up a full degree and his breathing shortened as a five-year-old pigtailed seductress in overalls and black tennies spotted Loretta and angled straight toward her, its hair tawny brown in the lights, its arms thin, its face a littoral of light and shadow but a mask of pure happiness to be sure, white teeth and red lips and eyes dark as tidepools at midnight—an Item so absolutely perfect and compelling that Hypok’s breath shallowed out to almost nothing, snagging against his throat like a skiff on a Key West flat, and he breathed in deeply now and fumbled for his cinnamon drops as he knelt and fed out leash so Loretta could wobble out to greet this radiant, approaching Item.

He watched the Item sit cross-legged, with Loretta climbing all over its lap. The Item grabbed the puppy’s head gently, steadied it while looking into Loretta’s face, then kissed her on the nose.

“You smell good!”

Its voice was thin and high and very clear, made you feel like you were breathing mountain air, or amyl nitrite poppers.

“Her name’s Loretta,” he managed.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Expand lungs. Relax.

The Item looked at him for the first time, and Hypok knew that its first reaction to him would make it gettable or not. He waited like a disciple for a miracle, or a revelation from his master. Then, an ocean of warm optimism rolled through him when it smiled and said, “Mine’s Ruth.”

Ruth! A genuine name! The Book of Ruth!

“Here,” he said, “you can offer her a reward.”

“What did she do?”

“She’s being nice to you.”

Hypok cracked open the box of doggie treats and held one—shaped like a tiny hot dog—out toward the Item. It leaned forward, still sitting, still smiling, and took the biscuit.

Loretta got a whiff of it and jumped toward the Item’s hand, then tried to climb its arm.

“She’s hungry!”

“Hold the treat over her head, tell her to sit, and tug gently on the leash.” Hypok felt the warm, surging seas inside him starting to settle and solidify. The breeze against his ears suddenly felt cool and instructional:
get it to the van.
“Tug
gently
on the leash.”

When Loretta felt the tug, she wheeled left, then right, trying to locate her torment. Then she stopped, looked up at the Item’s lowering hand and leaped, snatching the treat midair and dropping it to the ground. She whirled around, trying to find it through all her hair.

“
Ohhh!
”

“That’s all right, Ruth. She’s got a lot to learn. Just like her brothers and sisters.”

“How many puppies do you have?”

“Well, there’s Mommy, Daddy and five others. Loretta is the happy one, because she knows she’s staying with me and her parents. The others are sad. So I left them in my car.”

“Sad why?”

“I’m taking them to the shelter. Hopefully, they’ll find homes, but you never know. Puppies understand that kind of thing. They understand when they’re safe and when they’re not.”

“Ohhh. That’s sad.”

“It’s very sad. It breaks my heart, actually. So I stopped here to get a box of treats for them all. I’m just looking for excuses not to drive to that animal shelter.”

“I wish I could take them.”

“I doubt your parents would be very happy about that.”

“No. We have a cat.”

“Where are your mom and dad, by the way?”

Ruth looked at him, then turned and pointed to a crowded restaurant lobby. The place was packed—people standing outside, inside, everywhere. “Getting dinner to go.”

It looked like a long wait.

“Which ones?” he asked.

“Oh, they’re in there somewhere. We do this
every
Friday. They let me watch the fountain because it takes so long, and Daddy can have wine, but he can’t bring it down here.”

Loretta had rolled onto her back while the Item scratched the dog’s hairy little belly.

“You know, I’ll bring the box out, and you and your mom and dad can at least look at the others,” he said. “No harm in that, I guess. Who knows?”

The Item smiled again, lifting Loretta up into its arms and staring into her hidden puppy face. “Could I have this one?”

“She’s mine! But I’ll let you see the others. All right?”

“Great!”

Hypok stood and walked toward the Item, bending down to take Loretta.

“Can’t she wait with me?”

“Well, I should keep her in my sight.”

“But I’ll watch her.”

“No … I really can’t let her be away from me like that. Let’s see … why don’t you … you know, my car is just right over there, so if you want to take the leash and walk her for me, that would be okay.”

“Can’t leave the fountain, Dad says.”

“Well, that’s understandable,” he said, softly.

Hypok set Loretta down and held the leash. The Item looked sadly at the puppy. He said nothing for a long, punishing moment.

“Actually, I won’t be able to bring them out, I guess, because I have to carry the box, too. Someone else would have to take Loretta.”

He smiled, then offered his most contrite and penitent expression. It was good enough to make God believe him. He held out the leash.

“It’s right over there. We’ll probably be back before your dad even
gets
his wine.”

The Item smiled too, and stood, then scampered toward his outstretched hand, reaching for the leash.

“Let’s go fast now,” he said.

“Come
on.
”

“I’m right behind you.”

A quick pivot of scaled head toward the restaurant lobby: a chaos of happy, hungry humans, the smell of food, white lights against the blue-black springtime sky of Southern California.

Ruth!

Y
ou stand in a room where a person was murdered hours ago and the room feels different than others. It feels ashamed. It feels violated. It feels guilty. You tell yourself it’s just in your mind, that you’re projecting yourself into the space, but places like that are different, even if you can’t tell why. They scream, but the scream is silent. They offer proof, but the proof is hidden. They wait for you to make things right. So you listen, and you look and you hope.

I’d gotten out of the department building as soon as I could, after reorganizing some of the CAY task force responsibilities and huddling briefly with Wade over the question of the media and my new exonerated status. We decided not to hold a press conference and not to release the story through Public Information just yet, hoping that The Horridus would continue his computer transactions with me. There was only a small chance that he would, we agreed, but it was a chance worth taking. There was still a small chance, too, that Vinson Clay over at PlaNet would do the right thing and finger I. R. Shroud for us—
if
I could get him back on the line. The Bureau had talked to Vinson, throwing their weight behind our plea. For myself, I would simply remain for a few more days as the accused child molester I had been, with few people outside the department much the wiser. Easy. At my insistence, The Horridus task force room was going to be staffed twenty-four hours a day with investigators and deputies assigned directly to the case. I had the feeling that The Horridus was about to rampage soon: he struck and failed and he wasn’t going to wait another thirty days to try again.

Wade, uneasy at the prospect of what might happen, agreed to keep the force working around the clock.

“The proaction was dangerous,” he said bluntly. “We got a mother killed.”

“We didn’t kill her,” I answered bluntly back.

“But if we’d left things well enough alone, Terry?”

“With The Horridus out there, sir, things will never be well enough.”

He sighed. “All right.”

Then he got up and closed the door to his office. You could see the heads turning again. He didn’t even bother to sit down.

“I’m hearing the rumors. You think somebody here had those photos made up?”

I told him I was sure of it: I. R. Shroud had been the supplier—perhaps the creator—and someone using my Web name, Mal, had made the purchase.

“Who?” he asked.

“Ishmael talked to Shroud thirty-two times in the last seventy-four days. I’ve got that from two different sources, sir, and it’s easy enough to check out.”

“How would he know your Web name?”

“It’s not a secret around here. I’ve written it down a dozen times at least, in my reports. Hell, Frances and Louis have both used Mal to lurk in the chat rooms. Ish could pick it up without working too hard.”

Jim Wade colored deeply. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against his door. “You two bastards,” he said quietly.

“I kept mine within the rules, Jim. He didn’t.”

“This is all an angle to move up the ladder?”

“It’s all ambition, jealousy, pride and suspicion. It’s human nature.”

“Well, I know a lot of human beings, Sheriff deputies among them, who don’t resort to this kind of shit on the playground.”

I shrugged. “It’s about Mel and Penny, too, and Ishmael helping me get on here twenty years ago. I don’t know, sir—ask Ishmael. He made the overtures to Shroud. Ask him what the hell they were talking about, if it wasn’t pictures.”

“I will.”

“And I’ll be curious to know what he says.”

“Maybe it’s about Donna Mason, too.”

It didn’t surprise me that Ishmael had ratted out my living arrangements to Wade.

“She’s one thing I’d like to keep out of this,” I said. “We’re sharing an apartment. On the salary I’ve been entitled to for the last two weeks, it’s about the best I could come up with.”

He looked at me and shook his head. “She’s turned down Ishmael three or four times, on story ideas. She’s covered you like you were the risen Christ. Did you tell
her
your Web name?”

To tell the truth, it had felt far more natural and innocent to tell Donna my lurker’s name than it did to admit to Wade that I had done so. My stomach shifted a little. “Yes.”

“Who’s the girl in the pictures?”

“I’d rather not say just yet, sir. I’ll get to her when I can.”

Jim Wade looked at me with his cop’s face, not his politician’s face or his public servant’s face. It’s a wise old face when he wants it to be, filled with a remarkable combination of doubt and hope.

“All right. You know, that special Mason did—the Texas connection—there were some things in there that shouldn’t have gotten out. That was our stuff, Terry. And I know she got it from you.”

“Guilty. Sir, I’m in love with her and I trust her. She’s the only one who didn’t drop me when those pictures hit.”

Wade smiled without happiness. “Her and Johnny.”

I said nothing.

“What I’m saying, Naughton, is that you aren’t a CNB employee who happens to have an office here.”

“I understand. I’ve been trying to help us.”

“You’ve been trying to help yourself. Just in case you didn’t know, the woman you lived with until a week ago gave me her notice today. She’s had enough of all this.”

The Gayley crime scene was bloodless, but grim in its own matter-of-fact way. John Escobedo and I let ourselves in at 6:05
P.M.
that Friday night, some fourteen hours after the death of Margo and the attempted abduction of seven-year-old Chloe. It was like the other scenes in the telltale ways: suburban, middle-class, ground-floor residence, no man in the house, single working mother and young daughter. And when we walked into Chloe’s bedroom, there it was, the silent scream.

Johnny walked me through, though there wasn’t much question about the sequence.

“He came in through the window, used a glass cutter and a bathroom plunger to hold the glass. Reilly couldn’t get anything off the plunger, so far. Anyway, he moved the latch up to unlock it, then slid the window back and climbed in.”

I could see the carbon powder on the windowpane and the rectangular shapes where the acetate lifting tape had been applied, then removed.

“The window was crawling,” said Johnny. “Frances is running them through CAL-ID and WIN with all our parameters on The Horridus.”

I looked glumly at the dust and glass, knowing The Horridus was wearing gloves when he came through.

“Gotta try, boss,” he said.

I turned and looked at the closet. It was easy to know where Margo had been standing when she surprised him because the room was small—not much space between the door and the closet. There was a chalk outline on the carpet in the shape of human legs, continuing into the closet, then the outline of a head against the far wall inside. Some of Chloe’s little-girl clothes were piled to either side of the silhouette. Beneath and beside the clothes were Chloe’s shoes. Mixed in with the shoes were those things you might expect in a seven-year-old’s closet that hadn’t been organized lately: dolls and drawing tablets, books and markers, stuffed animals, plastic horses, balls. Obviously, the sliding closet door had been open and Margo had reeled backward with The Horridus on top of her, probably with both hands locked on her throat. I knelt down and looked in.

“What did you take?”

“The pepper spray container, two books for prints—even though it’s a long shot—and a couple of shiny leather shoes that he might have touched. It was hit and miss, boss. There wasn’t anything that looked too good. The CSI’s really combed through for hair and fiber, though. There’s a lot for the lab.”

“No dust. Did you ALS the wall here inside?”

“We did. Nothing.”

“Coins, keys, pens, nail clipper, Chapstick—anything he might have lost from his pockets?”

“Not unless he carries Little Miss Makeup.”

“Loose button, thread?”

“Come on, boss. We’d be all over something like that.”

“Yeah, I know that …”

My voice trailed off, like it was consumed by the closet in which Margo had fought and died.

“The blood and skin’s our payoff,” said Escobedo. “If we get a suspect we can make him all the way.”

I turned and wondered what Chloe was doing while her mother fought for her life in the closet. Escobedo read my thoughts.

“The girl used a little Indian bead belt on him, she said. We’ve got the belt for fiber. She said when the guy was done with her mother, he stood up and she ran for it. Out the door, down the hallway, around the corner and out the door. She said he never touched her.”

“But no description?”

“Black hair, average, average. She only saw him from the back, half covered with the clothes that had fallen down. When he chased her through the house it was dark. She left the lights off as she ran, thinking ahead. Bright little girl. Outside she saw him when he gave up the chase. Dark too—couldn’t see much at all. No help there, boss, except the dye job on his hair. Black, she said. Not dark brown—black.”

“What was he wearing?”

“She was too scared to notice.”

I thought for a moment. “Latex might tear in a struggle.”

“That’s why we dusted the living shit out of this place.”

I knelt again and picked up one of Chloe Gayley’s shoes. It was a white canvas tennis shoe with some purple cartoon characters on it. I lifted it, turned it over and shook it: just a few grains of sand, and that was all. I couldn’t help but wonder at the tragedy of it. Just a day earlier, Margo and Chloe Gayley were a struggling little family unit, trying to pay the bills, get the grades, have some fun, do things right. Nice little apartment. Churchgoers. Good people trying hard to scratch out a life from a marriage that didn’t work. Now, Chloe was without a mother she had seen murdered, Margo was dead forever and their life was destroyed. Would some good come out of it? Maybe someday. But was that good anything like the good that might have come if this had never happened? No. This was just a loss, pure and simple, all caused by a monster’s appetite. An appetite as yet unsatisfied.

“He’ll move again soon,” I said. “He’s moving now.”

“What if he lies low, licks his wounds, figures he’s on a cold streak?”

“Pray for that one, Johnny. Pray for Margo Gayley to stand up and walk again too, while you’re at it.”

I lifted Chloe’s clothes off the closet floor and set them aside. Then I went through every one of her shoes, turning them over or feeling inside.

“Terry, what exactly are you looking for?”

“A miracle.”

There were no miracles in Chloe Gayley’s shoes, except that she would walk in them again. Survival as miracle.

My cell phone rang against my hip. I’d forgotten what a pleasure it was to feel a call coming through and know it was probably from my people at the department. It was Frances, who, alone among my CAY brethren, had neither welcomed me back to the fold nor acknowledged that she had been wrong about me. Frances too, I thought, who had found the pink envelope in Alton “Chet” Sharpe’s den and hand-delivered it to Jim Wade.

It was strange to recall my words to Wade, just an hour earlier, with which I had admitted that Frances, too, was well aware of the Mal handle, and the terrible access that name was granted in certain private chat rooms.

“Terry,” she said in a flat, businesslike voice, “we might have something useful here. We just got a call from an animal control officer up in Orange. Says The Horridus was at the animal shelter about two hours ago. She thought he looked familiar when she talked to him, but couldn’t place the face. Then she drove past the billboard on her way home.”

“Describe.”

“Black hair. Facial hair too—mustaches and those little sharp beards the kids are wearing, a completely revised edition. But she says it was him. She said his breath was bad—and she
hadn’t
seen Ish say so on TV.”

A current of joy buzzed into my heart. I thought about The Horridus at the animal shelter.

“What’s his name?”

“Warren Witt, a Santa Ana address, deputies on the way.”

I could see it. I could see him. And the logic behind his visit to the animal shelter came clear. “Did he take a puppy?” I asked.

“Yes. For his daughter.”

“He’s using it for
bait
, Frances.”

“I know he is, Terry. The officer made the van for us, because the guy was so weird—white, late-model Dodge, Cal plates 2JKF869. Plates stolen off an ‘89 Toyota three weeks ago in Irvine—a little side street off of Von Karman, a business area.”

“Give me his residence address.”

Frances did.

“We’ll be there in twenty,” I said. “Before you leave, get Amanda Aguilar and the animal control—”

“—I already did. They’re on their way here.”

I was still holding one of Chloe’s shoes in my hand, a little suede hiking boot with a red flannel lining. When I turned it over, nothing whatsoever came out.

We got there in less than twenty minutes, and just as I had suspected, it was not a residence at all. Instead there was a tortilla factory that had been in business, the owner told us, for forty years. No Witt. No Warren. He gave us each a sack of fresh tortillas, the nolard, low-fat kind the gringos like. He was just about to lock the door for the day.