From the kitchen Delgado heard the familiar voices of the task-force detectives. If they were back, then they must have completed their rounds, which meant they had located the car. From the license number, the Gryphon’s identity could easily be traced. At his home, the heads of his victims would be found. The last pieces of the puzzle would snap into place.
Delgado entered the kitchen and saw the eleven investigators scattered around the large sunlit room. He sensed their moody restlessness at once, even before Donna Wildman spoke.
“Bad news, Seb.”
His gut tightened.
“What is it?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“We checked out every car, truck, van, motor scooter, and tricycle within two miles of this location, and all the owners are accounted for.”
“Every vehicle.” Ted Blaise sighed. “Every goddamn one.”
“No,” Tallyman said. “There was one I didn’t check.” They all looked at him, and he smiled. “Cop humor.”
“Hilarious.” Wildman was not amused.
Neither was Delgado. He leaned against the refrigerator and rubbed his forehead. He was tired suddenly, more tired than he’d ever been.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he muttered. “The Gryphon must have had transportation to get here.”
“We were talking about that,” Jacobs said. “We came up with a few ideas.”
“Such as?”
“He might have lived in the area,” Robertson said. “Within walking distance. Then he wouldn’t have needed the car.”
Delgado grunted. “Pretty tall coincidence, don’t you think? He just happens to live a few blocks from the home of Miss Alden’s boyfriend?”
“Not necessarily,” Robertson persisted. “Maybe she used to come up here a lot, to be with this Pellman guy. If the Gryphon lived nearby, he would have seen her hanging around. That could be why he chose to go after her in the first place. And it would explain how he knew he’d find her here.”
“There’s no reason to think any of the other women ever came to this neighborhood.”
“This could be a special case.”
“It’s possible,” Delgado conceded. “But I still think it’s farfetched.”
“How about this?” Blaise offered. “Suppose he parked on a side street, and while he was otherwise occupied, the car got lifted.”
Delgado smiled without humor. “Now there’s a coincidence.”
“I admit that. But L.A.’s the car-theft capital of the world. And there are a lot of nice wheels garaged in these hills. You never know.”
“I’ll file that one under Improbable. Any other suggestions?”
“An accomplice,” Gardner said. “Let’s say the Gryphon worked with a friend. He parks, leaves the friend in the car, and when the friend hears sirens, he gets nervous and takes off.”
“Nearly all serial killers work alone,” Delgado said slowly. “And we have no indication of any teamwork in these killings.”
“Can’t rule it out, though. Remember Bianchi and Buono.”
“I acknowledge the possibility. Tommy. But I’m still not convinced.”
Gardner shrugged, not pressing the point. “So what do you think?”
“Perhaps ...” Delgado hesitated, superstitiously reluctant to voice this thought and somehow make it real. “Perhaps the Gryphon took the car himself. Perhaps he didn’t die in the crash after all.”
“No way,” Robertson objected. “The explosion—”
Delgado cut him off. “If the gas tank wasn’t badly ruptured, he might have escaped from the car before it blew. In which case he’s still out there, and ...”
His words trailed away.
He was picturing Wendy in her bed, protected only by hospital security. Protected from the media, from tabloid journalists, nothing worse.
He reached for the wall-mounted kitchen phone. His radio handset would be more direct, but reporters would be monitoring the police bands, and he preferred to keep this communication confidential.
“What is it, Seb?” Wildman asked as Delgado punched in the number of the dispatch center in downtown L.A.
“I’m sending a uniform to pick up Miss Alden at the hospital right now, whether the doctors are through with her or not, and move her to the West L.A. station. I want a hundred cops around that woman—hell, a thousand of them—until we figure out what in God’s name is going on.”
21
Shortly after Delgado left, a doctor examined Wendy, looking her over like a mechanic inspecting a damaged but still functioning piece of machinery, and concluded she was well enough to go home. She was relieved to hear it. She’d always hated hospitals. No matter how much Lysol disinfected and deodorized the air, she was morbidly certain she could smell death in these places; and today of all days, she didn’t like that smell.
Alone again in her room, she put on the clothes that had been left for her in the bureau. As she dressed, she found herself humming a melody, a strangely familiar one. Then she recognized it: “Full Moon and Empty Arms”—the same tune she’d hummed in the kitchen last night while she felt the pressure of a killer’s gaze.
The police officer who’d delivered the clothes had selected an outfit typical of the old Wendy: white cotton blouse, gray pleated skirt, sensible low-heeled shoes. Wendy studied her reflection in the bathroom mirror with a muted sense of nostalgia. She felt as if she were looking at a photograph of herself from years ago, her college yearbook portrait, perhaps, or the faded photo on her driver’s license. The drab uniform no longer suited her. From now on she would wear only bold colors and exotic styles. She wanted to stand out in a crowd, to be seen and admired. She wanted—
A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts.
“Come in,” she said automatically, assuming her visitor was another nurse or orderly.
But when she stepped out of the bathroom, she saw a uniformed policeman standing at the threshold of her room.
“ ’Morning, ma’am.”
“Good morning,” she answered uncertainly.
“Detective Delgado sent me to collect you.”
“You mean, take me home?”
“Well, no, not exactly. He’d like to have you wait at the police station.”
She blinked. “Wait there? Why?”
“Just a precaution.”
“He didn’t say anything about that to me when he was here.”
“Well ...”
Then she understood.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. Sudden fear jellied her knees. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?”
The cop moved his big shoulders. “That’s the rumor. But don’t tell the detective I said so, or I could be in some real hot water, if you catch my drift …”
He went on speaking, but Wendy no longer heard him. His voice had receded, as had the walls of the room. The floor canted dangerously. Her head hummed.
“God. Oh, God.” Was she saying that? “Oh, my God.”
“Ma’am?” The cop took a step toward her. “You okay?”
That was a question. She had to answer it.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes.” She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. She regained some measure of control. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“I shouldn’t have shot my mouth off. Like I said, it’s a rumor, that’s all. I’m just a grunt; nobody tells me much.”
“I understand.”
“All I know for sure is that I’ve got to get you over to the station. And that it’s for precautionary purposes only. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“You got any stuff you want to take with you?”
“No. Nothing. Let’s go.”
As they walked down the hall, a new thought occurred to her.
“I’ll have to arrange the payment of my bill before I leave.”
“I’m afraid Detective Delgado’s orders were to take you there straightaway. He was what you might call explicit on the subject.”
“I can’t just walk out with
out paying.”
“As a matter of fact, you can.” He tapped his shield. “Believe me, a badge can work wonders in a situation like this.”
She didn’t argue, because of course he was right.
They rode the elevator to the ground floor. At the front desk the cop talked briefly with the receptionist. Wendy signed a carbon-backed form she didn’t bother to read, and then she was free to go.
The parking garage was directly adjacent to the lobby. The cop led her to a Dodge Aries coupe.
“The detective thought it would be a good idea to use an unmarked car,” he explained as he unlocked the driver’s-side door. “There’s a whole bunch of TV people out front, and if they laid eyes on a black-and-white, they’d be after it in a New York minute.”
Wendy slid into the backseat. She watched the cop remove a tan coat from the passenger seat and shrug it on, concealing his uniform.
As he climbed behind the wheel, she leaned forward and said, “The TV people aren’t the only reason for taking this car, are they?”
His face was all innocence as he turned to her. “Beg your pardon?”
“The real reason is that Detective Delgado is afraid the Gryphon will be waiting in the crowd outside. And if he is, then he might be the one to follow us. Or he might try something crazy, right on the spot.”
The cop nodded sheepishly. “Guess there’s no use trying to fool you, ma’am. And in case you’re wondering, I’m wearing this beat-up old coat on account of the same considerations. I’m not supposed to look like a cop, see? And, uh, I’m not supposed to be seen with a passenger either.”
She recalled the routine in the parking lot of the police station last night. “You want me to stay out of sight?”
“I’m afraid so.”
With a sigh, she knelt on the floor and lowered her head. The narrow space between the front and rear seats was as claustrophobic as a coffin, the coffin that might yet be hers if the Gryphon learned her whereabouts again.
Suppose he was in the crowd outside, with the pistol he’d used during the car chase concealed under his jacket. Suppose, despite every safeguard, he somehow knew which car she was in. Suppose ...
Don’t think about it, she ordered.
Through the bandages on her palms she felt the four-cylinder engine shudder to life. The tires screeched as the Dodge reversed out of the parking space and pulled up to the gate. A moment later sunlight flooded the car’s interior. Wendy waited tensely as sounds of traffic and rushing air flew past.
“Okay,” the cop said after what seemed like several hours, “you can come up for air now.”
Shaky with relief, she climbed back into her seat.
She looked out the window and saw that they were heading west on Santa Monica Boulevard. As she watched, the steel-and-glass towers of Century City glided into view on the left. She picked out the smaller office building where she worked. The sight of it reminded her to call the office and let everybody know she was all right.
“Nice part of town, isn’t it?” the cop asked from the front seat. She noticed he was wearing sunglasses now, an unofficial part of the uniform of every L.A. patrolman. “Century City, I mean.”
“I work there.”
“Do you? What sort of job?”
“I write informational booklets for an actuarial firm, Iver and Barnes. It’s pretty boring, actually. I’ve been doing it for five years, and I think pretty soon I’ll be trying something new.”
She realized what she’d just said. The words astonished her; and more astonishing still was the knowledge that they were true.
Rolling down the window, she gazed out at the morning. Last night’s winds had died down, and a fresh breeze off the ocean had scrubbed the city clean, gifting L.A. with one of those rare perfect days unblemished by a brown haze of smog and unbleached by a white smear of sun. There was only a baby-blue sky streaked with herringbone filigrees of cloud.
She let her head drop back against the seat and surrendered herself to the crisp sunshine and the cool, healing air.
“Private joke, ma’am?”
At first she didn’t understand. Then she realized she’d been smiling broadly; he must have seen her in the rearview mirror.
“No,” she said. “Not a joke. I was just thinking that ... well, that it’s a good day to be alive.”
“Every day is like that.”
Yes, Wendy answered silently. Every day from now on.
22
Delgado was the first to reach the wreckage of the patrol car.
It lay on a broad shelf of granite a hundred feet above Thornwood Place, sprawled like a lazy cat, its chassis resting on the rock, its front end overhanging the lip of the outcrop. Fire had left the car a charred and smoking ruin. The domelights had melted; gooey tentacles of molten glass slimed over the roof. The tires were puddles of liquefied rubber. From inside the sedan came an acrid smell. Delgado wanted to believe it was the odor of burnt flesh, the Gryphon’s flesh. He hoped the bastard had been roasted alive.
But he was no longer sure.
He and the members of his task force had been granted permission to hike up the mountain only fifteen minutes earlier. The twelve of them had made their way swiftly through the thinned and blackened brush, rarely speaking. The blistered landscape discouraged conversation. It was a study in charcoal, all stark tones and harsh contrasts, reminding Delgado of the engraved illustrations of Gustave Doré. And Doré, he thought grimly, had been particularly expert at depictions of hell.
In the pale morning light, the crust of diammonium phosphate—dumped at dawn by a swarm of helicopters—looked pink and gelatinous, like the vast puckered surface of an amoeboid monster in a science-fiction movie. Wisps of smoke curled from rare places where spot fires still burned under the chemical coating. At various distances, fatigued fire crews could be seen tramping up and down the mountainside, dampening the last stubborn smokes with handheld soda-and-acid fire extinguishers.
As Delgado climbed higher, he observed that the grade of the mountain was not as steep as he’d first believed. What appeared from above to be a sheer drop was actually a gentler slope angled at about forty-five degrees. The patrol car would not have cartwheeled and somersaulted two hundred feet; instead it must have sledded down like a maniacal toboggan, chewing up clumps of blueblossom, greasewood, and Christmas-berry as it went. The tough, congested brush no doubt slowed its progress, preventing the buildup of lethal momentum. Only when the car struck the granite shelf did it receive the powerful impact that ruptured the gas tank. A fatal impact? Not necessarily. Delgado had seen cars folded into steel origami, from which the drivers had walked away with only minor scrapes and cuts.
Briefly he comforted himself with the thought that, even if the Gryphon escaped from the car before it exploded, he could not have outrun the brushfire that followed. But the wind had been gusting westward; if the Gryphon headed east, away from the flames, he could have descended to Thornwood Place, then hurried through the network of intersecting streets till he hooked up with Nichols Canyon Road a mile to the south. From there it would not have been difficult for him to find his car, parked on some dark side street, and drive off, unnoticed in the confusion.
Yes, Delgado decided as he planted one shoe on the spur of granite and stood looking at the wreckage three yards away. The Gryphon could have done that. But had he?
Slowly he approached the car. Without looking back, he knew that the other detectives had halted at the edge of the rock, watching him tensely.
The car ticked and hissed and creaked, sounds of the jungle or the swamp. Every window had exploded in the intense heat, and the spray of glass fragments littering the ground had melted, fusing with the rock to form lumpy starbursts, transparent as ice. Picking his way among the slippery mounds, Delgado reached the driver’s side of the car, taking care not to touch the smoldering metal, and peered in through the twisted window frames.
The front and back seats were craters of ash. Plastic stalactites dripped
from the dashboard. Cinders drifted lazily in the air like dust motes.
There was nothing in the car. Nothing. No human remains.
Delgado turned and shook his head once. “Gone.”
“The scumbag might be dead anyway,” Tom Gardner said with desperate optimism. “Even if he jumped clear, he could have been torched. The whole mountain went up like a bucket of super premium.”
Delgado shrugged. He wasn’t hopeful. “Let’s fan out and see.”
They obeyed. Delgado remained at the car, circling it slowly, looking for clues he did not find. He wondered if this man could ever be killed.
“Seb!”
The cry was Donna Wildman’s. She stood near the black remnant of a scrub oak thirty feet away, her outstretched arm arrowed at something in the brush.
Delgado clambered off the rock and ran to her. Looking down, he saw a body lying facedown on the ground, burned so badly that most of its skin had crisped like bacon and peeled off. The body was nude, the clothes apparently incinerated along with the flesh.
“Son of a bitch.” That was Eddie Torres. Delgado glanced up and saw the other detectives ringing the scene. “We got Tweetie Bird, after all.”
But Delgado didn’t think so. An ugly suspicion was taking shape in his mind.
“Turn him over,” he ordered, his voice ominously low.
Tallyman and Robertson donned plastic gloves and gently rolled the corpse onto its back. The front of the body was crusted with dark soil.
“Scrape him clean.”
The two men wiped away the filth, exposing the corpse’s face, preserved from the fire by the dirt. One sightless eye gazed up at them; the other was a bloody hole.
“Oh, Christ,” Blaise whispered. “It’s Sanchez.”
Delgado nodded, unsurprised.
Harry Jacobs scratched his jaw. “Was he thrown here by the force of the blast, you think?”
“No.” Delgado knelt by the body. “He was dragged.”
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