by Sarah Lovett
He looked like an altar boy.
Sylvia Strange shifted in the hardwood chair where she had been poised for more than thirty minutes. The glare of the fluorescent lights made her head ache. Her navy silk skirt was creased. She hoped dark circles of perspiration weren't visible under the arms of her suit jacket. It was her job to maintain the illusion of control even when the courtroom resembled the inside of a pressure cooker.
Sylvia noticed sweat easing down Judge Nathaniel Howzer's throat to the collar of his black robes. The judge had summoned opposing counsel to the bench three times during the past fifteen minutes. Clearly, he wasn't pleased with the most recent turn of events.
Just days earlier, Erin Tulley, an officer with the New Mexico State Police, had admitted that Anthony Randall had been reeling under the effects of drugs and alcohol when he confessed to rape. The law demanded that confessions be knowing and voluntary—tricky when the confessor's system was toxic.
Immediately following Tulley's turnaround, the defense had filed a motion to suppress the confession. If granted, there would be no trial, and the defendant would walk. The judge had refused to render a decision on the motion until he heard the testimony of the evaluating forensic psychologist: Sylvia Strange.
As Judge Howzer conferred yet again with defense and prosecuting attorneys, the bailiff fanned himself with both hands. It had to be pushing ninety degrees in the courtroom. A female journalist in the gallery lifted a ponytail of graying hair above her neck and strained forward to catch the breeze from a portable fan. The nose and mouth of another reporter were covered with a white mask to filter out environmental impurities.
Behind the press row, the family members of the rape victim were huddled together. The victim's mother looked as if she was shell-shocked. Sylvia could hardly bear to glance at the woman.
Judge Howzer finished his murmured consultation with the attorneys. Sylvia took a deep breath to regain her focus as Tony Klavin, the defendant's attorney, approached the witness stand. Klavin was thirty-five, athletic, and aggressive; he committed every ounce of energy to this examination.
"Dr. Strange, at any time during the fifteen hours you spent with the defendant Anthony Randall, did you discuss his family history?"
Sylvia saw Randall seated at the defense table, his blond head held perfectly still. She said, "During the examining interview I obtained a clinical history to establish the individuality of the defendant's background, his family, education, and life experiences."
Tony Klavin nodded sagely and the dark curl that licked his forehead bounced ever so gently. He'd earned a reputation as a cunning and oily defense attorney by taking on offensive clients and winning their high-profile cases. He jammed both hands into his pants pockets and hunkered down. "Did Anthony Randall have a tragic childhood?"
"Objection." The prosecutor, Jack O'Dell, was on his feet. He shook his head in disgust. "Dr. Strange has not been qualified by this court as a dramaturge, Your Honor."
"Mr. Klavin, rephrase the question in less theatrical language."
Tony Klavin touched the tips of his fingers together; his hands formed a triangle. "Dr. Strange, did Anthony Randall become a substance abuser when he was eleven years old?"
For a split second she locked eyes with the defendant; it was like looking into the eyes of something dead. Six weeks ago, during the final clinical interview at the jail, Randall had been cocky, convinced that his ability to manipulate would get him whatever the hell he wanted. He wasn't sophisticated enough to be cognizant of the MMPI-2 validity scales, which detected "fake bad" crazies—those hard-core cases who wanted the world to think they were too sick to take responsibility for their crimes. But he had a good handle on his sociopathic skills: deceit, control, exploitation.
To hear Anthony Randall tell it, he was the victim.
Sylvia felt the dampness between her shoulder blades, and one droplet of sweat slowly traveled down her spine. She ran her tongue over her lips and willed herself to speak. "Anthony Randall was hospitalized for alcohol abuse when he was twelve."
"At what age did he begin to drink?"
"Between the ages of ten and eleven."
"And did he also begin sniffing glue?"
Jack O'Dell interjected, "Your Honor—"
While the attorneys argued another point of admissibility, Sylvia took a breath and centered her mind on the business at hand. In this case, she was a witness for the defense. As a forensic psychologist, she worked for prosecution, defense, or the court—whoever requested her services. Impartiality was a professional requirement.
Sylvia had evaluated hundreds of criminal offenders. She had heard enough truly horrific life stories to fill volumes. And most of the time, she felt empathy for the defendants. But Anthony Randall left her cold. He enjoyed inflicting pain.
Sylvia continued to answer Tony Klavin's questions, to build a case for Anthony Randall, the conduct-disordered child who had grown into a dysfunctional, antisocial adult. With each response, Sylvia felt her stomach muscles clench. Months ago, when she first read the police crime reports, she'd wept. Anthony Randall had beaten and raped a fourteen-year-old girl with a metal pipe. And then he'd left her for dead.
Flora Escudero had survived—just barely. But she had been unable to identify her masked attacker.
Sylvia was no proponent of the death penalty. It was an archaic, unjust system—racially and economically biased, outrageously expensive, imperfect, and inhumane.
But she couldn't deny the intensity of the primitive emotion that welled up inside her: she wanted Anthony Randall to die.
A DESPERATE SILENCE
Dr. Strange is used to dealing with the most demented killers, but she is faced with a whole new challenge when the key to a murderer's identity is locked in the mind of child traumatized into silence.
The girl gripped the steering wheel with both hands. Her fingers were pale where knuckles stretched skin, her arms were thin as sticks. Bones—not flesh—defined her body. Toes on toes, her bare feet pressed the accelerator flush against the Honda's floorboard. Her head scarcely topped the dashboard, but she saw the narrow horizon of black-top change suddenly to desert and barbed wire. Raising a wake of dust, the car hurtled headlong off the highway toward a fence. Gravel smacked the windshield.
As the fence loomed closer, the world careened past the moving car—low trees, jutting rocks, rolling terrain. The child's chest heaved, but all sound of her breathing was smothered by a song blaring from the radio. The music rose tinnily above the rattle of loose metal and the high-pitched whine of hot engine.
The girl jerked the steering wheel to the left, straining her muscles, frantic when the vehicle didn't respond the way Paco had taught her it would. She was sure the car would crash and she would die in flames and twisted metal. For an instant, she imagined giving in to the black night. But she was a fighter, and so she focused the last reserves of her energy on steering the car. Finally, she felt the shudder of tires forced back onto the hard surface of the road.
Dim yellow headlamps filled the rearview mirror, and the child's heartbeat stuttered. It was el demonio, the demon—with his dark hungry face. The lights glowed like the eyes of a crazy animal. A sudden memory jolted through her mind: fingernails scratching her neck just as Paco's strong arms pulled her from the demon's reach.
But there were no grown-ups with her now—and no safe place. Just the yellow glowing eyes of her pursuer growing larger in the rearview mirror.
Blood smeared the girl's cheek and lip. Dried blood where she had slammed her cheek against metal, fresh blood where she bit her lip in fright. A deep blue-black bruise darkened the inside of her left thigh. Beneath the delicate chain and the silver medallion around her neck, the skin was red and scratched where the demon had torn at her with long cold fingers.
Suddenly, there was a new danger—bright flashing lights in front of the Honda—coming at her! These lights snaked across the road, blocking her path. The child was trapped. Her eyes opened wid
e, and panic stole her breath away.
What was it? A truck? A bridge? A train!
She swerved the Honda and hit the brakes again—but too hard. The car went into a skid, across the road toward barbed wire and tracks. She couldn't escape the metal snout of the train engine.
A cry of terror escaped the child's mouth, just as a fat hunter's moon broke over the foothills of the Sangre de Cristos. The moon's glow suffused the night sky. She whispered the first words of the prayer.
Our Mother, Nuestra Madre—
And then she squeezed her eyes shut as a solid wall of moving metal caught the front end of the Honda. The noise of rending steel and a shower of sparks raked the night as the train pushed the car fifty yards along the track.
The dark green Chevrolet Suburban slowed on U.S. 285 just south of Lamy, New Mexico, and Lorenzo Santos Portrillo tried to make sense of what he'd just witnessed: the Honda had collided with a train. He peered out into the moonlit desert, straining to locate the ruined car, to gauge the seriousness of the accident. What he saw was an illuminated mess of smoke and dust and twisted metal roughly a quarter mile away. Directly ahead, the stalled train blocked the road.
His eyes were invisible in the unlit interior of the vehicle. His even white teeth were clenched. The scent of citrus cologne clashed with the uncharacteristic tang of nervous sweat and blood. Despite his agitation, Lorenzo's physical movements remained tightly controlled, but his mind refused to harness information with its usual discipline. He'd seen a ghost tonight; at first he believed she'd returned from the grave to do him evil.
But her terror had persuaded him she was merely human.
Renzo eased his foot off the accelerator, letting the Suburban coast. He was focused on the flashing lights of the train, and he almost failed to register a car, hazard lights blinking, pulling off to the side of the road opposite the scene of the accident.
The warning message squeezed through to his consciousness: more people to deal with tonight. They were crossing the road, shining flashlights over the terrain as they approached the crash.
Was the girl alive or dead?
Lorenzo drove slowly. In the time it took the Suburban to cover the last eighth of a mile, a man—lantern in hand—swung himself down from the train and darted toward the wrecked Honda. The car had been crushed by the train's massive engine.
Lorenzo's gloved fingers grazed his steering wheel; the gloves were cheap leather throwaways. On his left wrist, the thick silver bracelet—etched with the face of Serpent Skirt—was smeared with Paco's blood.
The blood had a dull sheen visible even in the darkness of the car. He remembered to check his face in the rearview mirror. When he briefly snapped on the overhead light, he saw the droplet of blood above his lip. He wiped the stain away.
The Suburban vibrated as its right tires ate soft shoulder less than a hundred feet from the wreck. The beams of the car's headlights illuminated weeds and a downed barbed-wire fence. A discarded plastic bag, caught on a barb, shivered in the evening breeze like a stranded octopus.
Lorenzo put the Suburban in park, engine idling. As he pushed his arms into his suit jacket, he slid a .22 semi-automatic into the right pocket. His briefcase was on the floor of the passenger side. His suitcase and his golf clubs were in the trunk.
A harsh sigh escaped his lips. It would be dangerous to deal with multiple witnesses. Not that he couldn't do it. Two nights ago he had killed four men—two of them trained bodyguards. But he needed all his wits, his resources—he couldn't deny he'd been shaken by the discovery of the child. He took a breath, exhaled slowly, and stepped out of the car.
DANTES' INFERNO
The clock is ticking as Dr. Strange tries to track down a bomber by searching the depths of one of the most depraved minds of any killer she's ever worked with
April 23, 2000—11:14 A.M. Los Angeles was wearing her April best: cerulean sky, whipping cream clouds, rain-washed air that whispered promises of orange blossoms and money. An LA day of sweet nothings.
Wanda Davenport, schoolteacher and amateur painter, expertly gripped the T-shirt of ten-year-old Jason Redding just as he was about to poke a grimy finger between the sculptured buttocks of a 2,500-year-old Icarus. Antiquities were the thing at the Getty Center. And so were toilets. The lack of toilets. Four of her fifth-graders needed to pee, and her assistant was nowhere in sight.
"Line up, guys," Wanda barked with practiced authority. "Jason, you get to hold my hand."
The boy moaned and rolled his eyes, but his face was glowing with excitement. Her class had been planning this trip for six months. Given a choice between Universal Studios and the Getty, they'd gone with art. Fifth-graders! Who woulda thunk?
But then again, Wanda Davenport wasn't your everyday teacher. She was so passionate about Art a wee bit of her passion rubbed off on just about anyone who spent a few weeks under her tutelage. She loved the realists, the impressionists, the dadaists—from the classical artists to the graffiti artists, she was a devoted fan.
She smiled to herself as she gave the command to march. Jason caused her a lot of grief, but secretly he was one of her favorites. He was smart, hyper, and creative. One of these days he could be a famous artist, architect, inventor, physicist, whatever.
"Turn right!" Wanda should've had a night job as a drill sergeant.
Jason nearly tripped over his own two feet, which were audaciously encased in neon green athletic sneakers, one size too big. Wanda knew that his mother, Molly Redding, was a recovering substance abuser; she was also a single mom supporting her only child by waiting tables. These were rough times in the Redding household, but there was love and hope, and Jason was a terrific kid.
"Turn left!" Wanda ordered her students, watching as Maria Hernandez accepted a fireball from Suzie Brown; the bright pink candy disappeared between white teeth.
Twenty minutes earlier, Wanda had herded her troop of ten- and eleven-year-olds onto the white tram car for transport to the hilltop. The 1.4-mile drive had provided a startling view of Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean. The moneyed view. The new J. Paul Getty Center was situated in Brentwood, nuzzled by Santa Monica, nosed in by mountains.
From the tram and the marble terrace fronting the museum at the hilltop, Wanda had called out city names for her children: Ocean Park, Venice, LA proper (the downtown heart of the metropolitan monster, with its constant halo of smog), San Pedro's south-end industrial shipyards, a tail in the distance . . . then back to Santa Monica and the ocean pier extending like a neon leg into blue waters . . . and last but not least, up the coast to movie-star Malibu, which had incorporated just as mud slides devoured great bites of earth and forest fires grazed the landscape down to bare, charred skin.
With that lesson in geographic and economic boundaries, the kids had marched into the reception building; Wanda barely had time to glance at the program provided for the tour; her students demanded 110 percent of her energy. No matter—she knew this place by heart. In her mind the architectural design was Greek temple married to art deco ocean liner. She'd wandered Robert Irwin's chameleon gardens for hours; each season offered new colors, new scents, new shapes and shades. Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus ran straight to the grounds. She'd lost count of her visits. Nobody had believed Culture could draw a crowd in LA. Well, just look at her kids!
With one expert swipe, Wanda removed a wad of gum from behind the ear of one of her oldest charges while simultaneously comforting the youngest, who was complaining of a stomachache. She couldn't wait to get them into the garden, her very favorite part of the facility. They began the trek across the first exterior courtyard. Water ran like glass between slabs of marble. The children shuffled and slid their shoes across the smooth stones.
"Hey, guys, remember the name of the architect? We covered this in class."
She barely caught Jason's mumbled response: "Meier."
"Richard Meier. That's correct, Mr. Redding."
They were almost to the stairway leading to the museum ca
fé and the outdoor dining deck. Within seconds, the central garden would rush into view. Lush with primary color and geometric form (chaos and pattern all at once), it overflowed the space between the multilevel museum and the institutes.
Wanda felt a tug at her sleeve and turned in surprise, looking down at the agitated face of another of her kids.
"Please, Miss Davenport, I have to go," a small voice announced.
"Break time, guys," Wanda called out cheerfully. "When we reach the bottom of these stairs, we'll use the rest rooms and regroup for the garden. Carla, hands to yourself. Thank you. No running, Hector."
They turned the corner, only to be welcomed by the sight of bougainvillea, jacaranda, orchid, daisy, iris, wild grasses, each as lovely and as ephemeral as a butterfly.
Wanda Davenport's last view in life consisted of the gardens she loved so much.
Jason Redding discovered the treasure chest beneath the stairwell. He opened it curiously, saw an intricate, whimsical, handmade collage—an infernal machine constructed of polished wood, ivory, colored wire, and spiked metal pipe filled with black powder.
The puzzled child heard a hissing sound, saw smoke and soft petals, twisting and turning, floating upward: initiation.
One neon green sneaker survived unscathed.
DARK ALCHEMY
Dr. Sylvia Strange finds herself playing cat one moment and mouse the next whe she must profile a prominent cientist so brilliant she leaves no evidence of her murders.
"One of the most problematic aspects of the case is the longitudinal factor; the deaths have occurred over a span of at least a decade," Edmond Sweetheart said. He was standing at the window of his room at the Eldorado Hotel. Behind him, the New Mexico sky was the color of raw turquoise and quartzite, metallic cirrus clouds highlighting a blue-green scrim.
"Why did it take so long to put it together?" Dr. Sylvia Strange had chosen to sit at one end of a cream-colored suede sofa in front of a polished burl table, the room's centerpiece. For the moment, she would keep her distance—from Sweetheart, from this new case. Her slender fingers slid over the black frame of the sunglasses that still shaded her eyes. Her shoulder-length hair was slightly damp from the shower she'd taken after a harder-than-usual workout at the gym. She studied the simple arrangement of flowers on the table: pale lavender orchids blooming from a slender vase the color of moss. Late afternoon sun highlighted the moist, fleshlike texture of the blossoms. The air was laced with a heavy, sweet scent. "Why didn't anybody link the deaths?"