Where Serpents Lie (Revised March 2013)

by T. Jefferson Parker

  “That’s a white Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge, late model, over.”

  “We know that much, over.”

  “Then goddamned find it!’’

  “Eyes wide as always, Terry … and out.”

  Five minutes. Frances intercepted the messenger carrying the photo from the FasTrak toll road people and ran it down to Reilly in the lab.

  The press conference was only five minutes old when a young deputy manning the 800 lines got our first call of a sighting of the new Horridus. The deputy explained to me that a young man claimed to have seen The Horridus drinking a piña colada in a Huntington Beach bar just last night—1:30 A.M.

  “He was at the Gayley house in Yorba Linda,” I said. “Forget him.”

  Ten minutes. Sam Welborn called from Wichita Falls to say that Wanda Grandey had three daughters, according to some old-time Hopkinites who knew. None had any idea what their first or married last names were. Collette Loach didn’t ring bells. Still working.

  Fifteen minutes. One of our Newport units found a witness who saw the van eastbound on Jamboree about the time the father called in. It tracked with my hunch that he’d move inland, away from the coast.

  The piña colada deputy said he had another caller on the 800 line: she had seen this revised Horridus exactly one week ago in a supermarket in Irvine.

  “He hadn’t revised himself by then,” I said. “He still had the white hair. Forget her.”

  Eighteen minutes. Chopper Three called in with a late-model Plymouth van moving south on Pacific Coast Highway at MacArthur, just entering Corona del Mar. Two Sheriff units were less than half a mile away, and three Newport Beach police units were already in pursuit. I slapped on the radio headset and identified myself.

  “We’re right over him now,” said the Chopper Three sergeant, “not going to let him out of my sight. I can see NBPD coming up behind him now … lights on … doesn’t see them … there—he’s pulling over. We’re on him, Terry … over.”

  “Stay up. Over.”

  “Couldn’t bring me down with a missile. Will advise, over.”

  Another young deputy working the 800 number said he had a caller on the line who claimed to be The Horridus.

  “Ask him where he is,” I ordered. The deputy did.

  “He laughed and hung up.”

  “Talk to Frances or Louis first when you get a call,” I said. “I don’t want these assholes wasting my time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Piña colada appeared beside his young partner. “Sir, caller on the line says The Horridus lives in the apartment next door to her. Very old woman, sir, says he drives a black pickup truck and delivers papers—”

  “—Well, he doesn’t. Talk to your buddy here about screening these through CAY—got it?”

  They turned and marched back to their phone bank.

  My heart was thumping hard as I put down the headset and turned to the sound of someone coming through the door in a hurry.

  Some things get your attention when you see them out of context, like your dog curled on the forbidden couch, like a movie star in the airline row across from you. They catch your eye and you know that something is different.

  And that’s what I was thinking when Joe Reilly came through the Room Horrible with his hair askew and a strange smile and an evidence bag held up before him. Joe Reilly, scientist, rarely seen out of his native lab habitat. Whatever he had, it wasn’t an enhanced photo of a toll road violator.

  “Something in here you should see,” he said. “It fell out of one of the shoes we were getting ready to laser for prints. One of the shoes from Chloe Gayley’s closet.”

  Joe handed me the plastic bag and I set it on the desk. I flattened it with my fingers to deflect the glare of the overhead lights and stared down at the small shiny object.

  It was a bracelet with a simple stainless-steel chain and an oval plate in the middle. The lobster-claw clasp was twisted open, unlockable now, ruined. On the front of the plate was an engraved serpent wrapped around a leafless branch. The words MEDIC ALERT were engraved down each side of the snake.

  I flipped it over.

  Allergic to Sulfa drugs

  Call Collect (209) 669–2450

  6548369

  “It could have come off in the struggle,” he said. “Either that, or it’s the girl’s, or maybe her mo—”

  I handed the bag back to Reilly and dialed the number on the badge. When the receptionist came on I gave it my best:

  “Dr. Terry Naughton out at UCI Med Center in Orange, California. We’ve got an ER admission here with your bracelet on, sulfa drug allergy, a-ok on that. Thought we’d get anything else and an ID—no wallet, no nothing on him, looks like a drug OD. We might lose this one.”

  “Number please?”

  I told her.

  “Just a moment, please.”

  Thirty-seven seconds: I timed it on my watch.

  “Dr. Naughton, that’s strange, because the bearer would be Mary Lou Kidder, last address is Wichita Falls, Texas. Now, I can—”

  I hung up and stood. I was ready to crush something, anything. If one of the 800 deputies had approached to tell me about another bogus Horridus sighting, it might have been his last day of walking upright.

  “It belonged to a girl back in Texas,” I told Joe. “The one he fed to his goddamned snake.”

  Joe’s countenance fell, and he nodded.

  Dispatch told us the Newport Beach police had already let the white Plymouth van go—family of five on their way to dinner.

  Frances edged past him and took my sleeve. “Terry, sorry. Look—one of the guys has a girl on the 800 line who says she tried to deliver a prescription ointment to The Horridus. I know it sounds kind of funny, but she’s watching the press conference and she’s positive it was him. I don’t know, she sounds honest and credible.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday morning. He came out and yelled at her. That gave her a damn good look at somebody, boss.”

  I thought of Strickley’s speculation about a skin condition that would make him unsure of himself. Something you might need prescription ointment for.

  Well, now.

  “Give me the phone.”

  “You’ll have to walk to it, Terry—some of them still have cords. Her name is Tamara and she’s seventeen. We’ve got her stats already.”

  I picked the phone off the table and identified myself, told her not to hang up, then asked her to tell me what she saw.

  “I’m like the new delivery person for Sloan’s Pharmacy in Santa Ana. And I went to take the delivery to our customer? And he came to the door and yelled at me because we’re just supposed to put it in the mailbox. But I didn’t know that? But he was the guy on TV tonight. It’s a rilly good drawing. Earring. Everything.”

  “Do you remember his name, or the name of the street?”

  “I’m really sorry but I can’t remember either one, because I’m new like I said and I don’t know the route yet? I mean, I can call the owner, Mr. Sloan, and he could probably tell me, but I thought I’d call you first. But I think he goes to bed pretty early. Either that or we open at nine in the morning.”

  “The house was in Santa Ana?”

  “No. We deliver in Tustin, too.”

  “Tustin.”

  “Yeah.”

  I felt the little chill traverse my scalp.

  “Old town?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Over by the high school.”

  “I’m not sure where that is. I’m new to California.”

  “Wall around the house, trees?”

  “Definitely a wall. I don’t remember any trees, though.”

  “A gate to drive in and out of, that slides?”

  “Yeah. There’s a few of them in that area.”

  “Tamara, think hard about the street name. Forget about the guy. Just let your mind relax and let the name of the street come to you.”

  If she would just have said Witmer or Whitman o
r Wymer or, God forbid, Wytton—I would be there in five minutes. I looked at Frances while I waited, my eyes wide but not seeing anything, looking right through her. Then I closed them. I tried to will that street name into Tamara’s mind.

  “Like it’s hard to relax when you’re talking to a cop?”

  “My girlfriend says the same thing.”

  She giggled. She was quiet for a long beat.

  My heart was beating so hard I could feel my ribs hitting my shoulder holster.

  “I’m feeling like really stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid. Let it come.”

  “It won’t.”

  “Okay. All right, Tamara. Answer this for me and the street name will come to you. What medicine were you delivering?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know the names. It was some kind of tube of something. Like a cream or ointment.”

  “For the skin?”

  “I don’t know. Wait. The street was something like Lomsdale, or Plumb Stem or Lump Street maybe?”

  My heart sank. Then it recovered.

  “Lumsden?”

  “Yeah, how did you know?”

  “That was your customer’s name, Tamara. You’re getting close. He uses that name all the time. It’s a fake name and he usually gives a fake address to go with it. But he gave his real address to you, because you had to bring him something he needs. You’re close. Think about that street name—”

  “—But you’re making me like rilly nervous again and—”

  I could feel the pulse in my neck, going about a thousand beats a minute. “I’m sorry, Tamara,” I said as meekly as I could. “I just get excited, too. I apologize.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Hey, while you think, I was wondering about this. I’ll ask you this while you think of that street name, okay? Now, you said he came to the door. That’s good, but how did you get past the gate?”

  “I meant he came to the gate. He came out because we’re supposed to drop the delivery in a slot in the wall and not ring the bell. Not bother him ‘cause he’s so important. And he came out and like yelled at me ‘cause I didn’t know. Like I already told you?”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I’m drawing like a total blank on the street. I could take you guys there. I know right where it—”

  “—That’s too slow for us now, Tamara!”

  “God, I’m just—”

  “—I’m sorry. Really, I didn’t mean to snap. I apologize again.”

  “You were more like yelling.”

  “I’m just getting so much pressure here at work to get this guy, you know? I take it personally. All right I’ll be cool. I promise. So, can you tell me what you did when he came out and yelled at you?”

  “Oh, and he had rilly bad breath.”

  Heart in my ears. Beating like it was trying to fly. Scalp tight and mouth going dry. The pen in my right hand snapped and left a splotch of dark black ink on my fingers. I dropped the pieces on the floor and wiped the ink on my pants.

  “Good! Great, Tamara. So … what did you do after he yelled at you and you smelled his breath?”

  “Oh, well I threw this flower at him and walked off. I don’t have to take that kind of—”

  “A rose?”

  “Totally! This old man like lives next door? He had this rose and he says he grows them and asked me if—”

  I cupped the phone and turned to Frances.

  “It’s 318 Wytton Street in Tustin. Get Johnny and two of our units there ASAP, but keep them a block back until they get a go-ahead from me. But first, Frances, get Chopper Two to pick us up on the roof. Now!”

  A minute later we lifted off the pad, the Civic Center receded beneath us, then the bird banked hard and threw my head back as we climbed fast toward the southwest. Stansbury was the pilot. Frances radioed Johnny down in Irvine and about-faced him to Tustin. I could hear his voice over the rotors and the deep roar of the engine.

  “Unit 83 to Airborne Two, Frances, I’m running under lights and siren, still six or eight minutes out. Okay.”

  “Stay the course, 83, we’ll be less than five.”

  “Dispatch has me holding a block out. I’m unmarked, man.”

  I told Frances to let him onto Wytton, but to hold until we put down, then find us.

  “Unit 83 reads, over and out.”

  I asked Stansbury if his piece of shit chopper went any faster. He just smiled and eased onto the fuel, shooting us across the black Orange County sky and into Tustin. I navigated us in by the map, then by my memory of old town. We were spiraling down along First Street when I saw Wytton, then, in the sudden beam of the helo’s searchlight, the towering sycamores over David Lumsden’s guest house.

  “No lights, Stan!”

  “Just making the ID, Terry. Fret not.”

  “Put us down on the street behind Wytton,” I said. “If he’s there, I don’t want to spook him.”

  “I’ll drop you down his chimney if you want.”

  “Behind Wytton, far end of the block.”

  “You’re there.”

  Then the chopper dropped like a rock and my stomach bounced off the roof of the cockpit. Frances said “Woooh,” and steadied herself while she drew and readied her sidearm, then reholstered it under her coat.

  “If he’s not there yet?” she asked.

  “We’ll wait.”

  “This thing is making me sick.”

  “Think pleasant thoughts.”

  “That’s why I checked my Sig.”

  The helo swept into a big semicircle and came in low onto Hurst Street, just behind Wytton.

  “Put us down at the far end,” I said. “We’ll go over the fence.”

  “Roger,” said Stansbury. “So it is written, so it is done.”

  I dropped to the asphalt of Hurst Street, road gravel stinging my face as I ducked the rotors and made for the sidewalk. Frances ran behind me. Johnny Escobedo and two prowl cars pulled up silently to the curb. There we were, a magnificent seven.

  We huddled while I used my notepad to sketch the general layout of the Lumsden place. I ordered one deputy around to the main house to block the drive with his car, jump the wall and take the front door. Another one at the back of it, and one on each side of the guest unit. Johnny would follow me in, then Frances.

  “Vests and shotguns,” I ordered.

  Hypok lay in the half light on the bed and ran his gloved hand over the pale blue dress, over the hip of Item #4. He lay behind it, but not too close, turned as it was toward the big cage. He remote-shot a couple of images of them on the digital cameras tripoded behind and above him. The smell of years came from his mother’s old red wool bedspread and Hypok felt like his mind was anchored not in the present at all, but free to skip back and forward in time, a nimble, lively little water bug glancing upon the tops of things. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.

  “Valeen?”

  “Umm-mm-MMM!”

  “There you are! I’m here, too. What’s Collette doing in the potty?”

  Hypok, propped on one elbow, looked across the Item to Moloch’s world, pleased to see him curiously tasting the air with his tongue, patrolling one wall of his cage with excruciating patience. He looked down at himself, pressed out hard against the new skin like a shiny tent. He began the undulation.

  “What’s Collette doing in the potty?”

  “Hmm-mmm-MMA!”

  He giggled. “Umm-hmm. She is?”

  Movement. Rhythm. Touch. Loretta asleep at his feet. Back to Missouri and the warm humid nights, back to the smells of his sisters around him, the room that somehow retained the smell of bacon and gardenias, back to the knowledge that his body was growing into feelings he already possessed, that he was soon going to experience them as he was born to. So close so many times, almost there, almost to the brink, almost to … what was it … release? An explosion of some kind? Undulate. Then back to the farmhouse in Arkansas and the terrible days of Ernie Mears and his mother locking him in the storm ce
llar for “things” undone with Valeen and Collette, for the neighbors’ rabbits he stole from the hutch and strangled, for just about anything at all that would keep him locked away while they drank and yelled and mounted each other all over the house like animals, actually found them once on the kitchen floor with the soup boiling over and Ernie’s overalls down around his boots and Wanda on all fours with her face glazed toward the window, reaching for her beer on the floor beside her. Then, onto better days for sure, those back in Hopkin when he began to truly know himself and what could happen if he could only arrange things correctly, and he discovered with Item #1 just how to direct the scene to excite and satisfy himself, how the pageant needed to be acted, how the final tableaux he had photographed with the cheapie Kodak burned in his mind like an eternal coal until he could muster his wit and stamina enough to begin the whole production again. Puxico. Fordyce. Hopkin. Tustin. Point to point, memory to memory, past to present and back again, all tied up into one. He clicked the digital camera again, capturing the present for the future.

  Undulate. Closer.

  Girl smell. Girl warmth. Girl touch. Contact.

  “Nmm-nmm-NMM!

  “No? Are you sure? Collette’s getting a what from the bathroom?”

  Then the sudden flash of light outside the windows and the sudden realization of what he had heard but not heard in his excitement—the faint overhead drone of an airborne machine coming closer, going past … coming back again?

  Loretta stood on the edge of the bed and whined.

  Then the light was gone and Hypok lay frozen.

  Listen. Undulate. Listen.

  But even with the windows closed against the cooling spring night he heard that machine coming closer again, sneaking through the night as if he were too stupid to notice something that rucking obvious; he was sure of it now, the faint, fast botta-botta-botta of blades in air and he rose from the bed and parted the blinds enough to see the lighted craft settling to earth somewhere on the street behind his.

  Up with the zipper.

  Although Crotalus horridus can be a ferocious foe, he will gladly flee if given an opportunity.