"I really think it's best if I"
"You know, I really think it's best if you follow orders, Lieutenant. Now how about you? Don't you think that's best?"
Lewinsky was smirking. Wolper wanted to clock him. "Yes, sir."
"Glad we understand each other." Hammond drifted away to speak with the Rampart patrol personnel.
Lewinsky and Banner lingered. "You're in over your head, Wolper," Lewinsky said, his voice low and nasty. "Go back to running a station house."
Wolper smiled. "Better watch that mouth of yours, Monica. It could get you in trouble someday."
If the adjutant had an answer to that, Wolper didn't hear it. He was already pulling Banner aside.
"What's the story, Phil? Why'd the DC involve himself in a sensitive case like this?"
Banner frowned. "Fuck if I know. It was against my recommendations. But the chief's a difficult man to dissuade."
"Guess that doesn't make your job any easier."
"Goddamn right." He forced a shrug. "Hell, it'll work out."
"If it doesn't, you can always spin it so it did."
Banner looked past him. "Some things," he said softly, "you just can't spin."
Wolper followed Banner's gaze. "I hear that."
Through the office doorway, Robin Cameron was visible, seated on the sofa in a tight, huddled ball of pain.
Chapter Thirty-one
Gray knew he had to ditch the Saab and the stolen clothes if he wanted to keep a low profile. And right now, going lo-pro was the only way to go. He was a big dog, a major violator, armed and dangerous, and the local lawmen would be getting their shit hot over him in a major way. Every swinging dick in a blue uniform would be gunning for his ass.
In the mid-Wilshire district he found a thrift shop, a ratty little place that looked like it had been going out of business for the past twenty years. He browsed the store, picking out tan pants, a brown shirt, and a denim jacket that fit him, paying with cash he'd taken from the doc's purse. The local news was airing on a black-and-white TV set behind the counter, but there was no mention of his escape.
In an alley he changed clothes, discarding the deputy's pants and the doc's jacket in a trash bin, along with his yellow jumpsuit.
So far, so good. He'd gotten his mojo back. Now for a new beast to thrash around in.
He cruised the streets, staying within the speed limit, stopping at yellow lights. The last thing he needed was a traffic citation. Ordinarily he wouldn't give a shit about the patrol fairies who worked traffic detail, doing drunk stops and cutting tickets, but today he had to play it smart.
Not far from the thrift shop, he found a parking garage, where he abandoned the Saab in favor of a Firebird owned by some weak motherfucker who was stupid enough to leave the passenger door unlocked. The car was an old bucket, nothing special, but that was okay, because the newer ones were harder to steal.
He slipped into the car and checked to see if the owner had left the keys under the floor mat or behind the visor. No such luck. Didn't matter. It was all good.
He shoved the two front seats farther backwhoever drove this dune buggy was a midgetthen slid into the passenger seat and braced his shoes against the driver's door. He wrested the steering wheel toward him as hard as possible and heard the crack of the steering lock.
Back in the driver's seat, he used his screwdriver to pry off the plastic cowling around the ignition keyhole. Inside the exposed hole were a half dozen multicolored wires. He pressed them together at random. The battery and ignition feeds connected, turning on the dashboard ignition lights. He touched the remaining wires to the two feeds until the engine turned over, then put the Firebird in gear and rolled.
In the glove compartment he found the parking stub. Nice of the dude to leave it for him. Gray paid the fee on his way out. The attendant never even looked at him. Real good security they had here.
The car had 92,000 miles on the odometer, but it handled fine, and nobody would be looking for him behind the wheel of a Firebird. There was only a tape player, not a CD deck, but the owner's taste in tunes was a lot better than Dr. Robin's. The cassette in the slot was Eminem. Gray cranked the volume.
He motored aimlessly, favoring side streets, watching the parked cars. On the outskirts of Inglewood he caught sight of another Firebird, blue like the one he'd boosted. The car sat at a curb in a neighborhood so empty of life that it might have been the set of one of those post-Armageddon movies where people were always getting into brawls over the last drum of gasoline or the last tin of pork 'n' beans. Gray parked behind the other car and got out. Using the screwdriver, he quickly swapped plates, then drove off, whistling.
Now even if the stolen Firebird was linked to him, the cops would be on the lookout for a car with a different license number. And if some patrol faggots happened to give the car he was driving the evil eye, the plates would run clean.
He'd got his swerve on, all right. He was staying cool, handling everything nice and smooth.
Now he needed to quarterback his next moves.
First things first. He needed more benjamins. There wasn't much cash in the doc's wallet, and he'd already spent some of it. He couldn't use her plastictoo easy to trace-so he'd have to jack some asshole at an ATM. Once he got paid, find a crib.
After that amp; well, shit, he'd been in stir a year. Had himself a major love jones. It was time to knock off a piece of ass. Find himself a booty house or some boulevard gash and do some serious pipe cleaning.
Wouldn't hurt to change his appearance, too. Dye his hair or shave himself bald or maybe grow one of those pussy goatees. Wear long-sleeved shirts to cover the tats on his arms.
Then lay low for a few days before beating feet out of town and starting over again in Seattle or Las Vegassomeplace big and growing, where a new arrival wouldn't stand out.
One thing was for goddamned certain: He wasn't going back to the joint. He was out, and he would stay out. Play it right, and he could keep going for years, moving from town to town, state to state. Before he was through, this whole country was gonna bow down to him.
By now it was nearly six o'clock. His escape must be all over the news. He ejected the Eminem cassette and dialed the radio to KFWB.
He was the top story. "I'm the man!" he yelled.
And they used his whole name, Justin Hanover Gray. He loved that. Three names, like fucking royalty. That was how the news reports always referred to him. He wished they'd given him a nickname, some kick-ass moniker like they gave that Ramirez guythe Night Stalker, they called him. But he guessed they didn't do that shit no more. There'd been so goddamn many serial killers, all the good names had been taken. Maybe if he'd done something more creative with his girlscarved them up or somethinghe might've gotten a nickname. The LA Butcher. The Death Dealer. The Bitch Snuffer.
"Bitch Snuffer." He laughed aloud at that one. He was feeling very damn good.
Then he heard the details of the report, and his warm glow faded.
They were saying he'd attacked a psychiatrist who was working with him. That he'd killed a deputy. And that he had kidnapped the psychiatrist's teenage daughter.
Meg? They thought he had Meg?
Even the boys in blue couldn't get their facts that fucked up. It had to be some kind of game they were playing, some way to mess with his head. He couldn't see the point, but one thing was for surethe doc was part of it. Her and the cops were spreading a bunch of bullshit about him, making him out to be a cop killer, which he wasn't, and a kidnapper, which he also wasn'tat least, not this time.
"Doc Robin's lying," he whispered. "Fuckin' lying about me."
The report was rebroadcast as he kept driving. He flipped to other stations, but the story never varied.
He was majorly vexed. Here he'd been feeling so fine, and then this shit had to come on the radio and harsh his mellow. Now he really wished he'd sliced her when he had the opportunity.
Here he'd gone out of his way to be civilized, to be a fucking gentleman, a
nd she goes and starts screwing with him, making up shit. He didn't mind sucking heat for stuff he'd done, but he'd be goddamned if he had to take the rap for stuff he had nothing to do with.
"Motherfucker," he said. He repeated the word every few seconds, feeling angrier each time.
What he needed was a drink. He stopped at a liquor store and bought a six-pack of Coronas, cracked a brew, and drove on, thinking about Dr. Robin Cameron and her bitch daughter and what he'd like to do to them both.
Chapter Thirty-two
Two hours.
Robin sat in an interview room at Parker Center, the LAPD downtown headquarters, checking her watch and trying to understand how two hours could have passed since she'd ridden here in the backseat of a patrol car.
Time seemed to have become disjointed in some unaccountable way. At some moments she felt she'd been sitting for a lifetime in this uncomfortable straight-back chair, facing the mirror that obviously served as the window of an observation room next door. At other moments she had the impression that she'd just taken her seat, and no time whatsoever had passed.
The ticking hand of her wristwatch was her only contact with objective reality, and it told her that the time was seven-fifteen. She'd left her office 120 minutes ago. And Meg had been missing for roughly an hour before that.
One thought sustained her: Gray didn't kill them right away. He let his victims live for a whilea few hoursbefore he took their lives. And in all the previous cases there had never been any indication of rape or torture. That was something, anyway. Something to hold on to.
She wasn't sure how long she had sat unmoving on the sofa in her office, after learning that Meg was gone. What she remembered was Lieutenant Wolper's voice finally reaching her after what must have been many attempts.
"Dr. Cameron?"
"Yes," she'd said. "Yes, I understand."
She wasn't sure what she understood. Her own name, maybe.
"Doctor, we're going to need a detailed statement."
"I've already gone over what happened."
"We'll need you to go over it again."
"Why? How does that accomplish anything? How does it help Meg?"
"Any little fact or observation might be significant. Do you feel up to going to Parker Center?"
"I can go there." She could do whatever she had to do.
"Okay, I'll arrange it."
She stopped him as he started to walk away. "If your son were missing, you'd do everything to find him, wouldn't you? Everything possible."
"Of course."
"That's how I want you to treat this case. As if it were your son."
"I will. We all will."
Leaving the office building had been a nightmaremore accurately, a fragment of the ongoing nightmare her life had become. A crowd of TV and radio people had gathered in the parking lot. She kept her face down as Wolper and two uniformed officers escorted her past cameras and microphones. Questions were shouted. People were asking, How did she feel? She wanted to scream at them to shut up. She wanted to smash the camera lenses that were making her private tragedy into a show.
At Parker Center she had waited in this interview room, running her hands over the steel eyebolt secured to the scarred wooden table. The eyebolt, she supposed, was used for handcuffing prisoners. That was what she wasa prisoner, held captive by Justin Gray, her future dependent on the unpredictable workings of his mind.
When Wolper finally entered, carrying a portable tape recorder and a Styrofoam cup of water for her, he wore the tired, bemused look of a man who had won a bureaucratic battle. She imagined he'd had to fight to stay on the investigation. The case was a big one. A lot of people would want to be in on it. And Wolper was out of his territory and off duty, to boot. Still, he was the one who interviewed her. There probably were other people watching from behind the mirror, maybe even videotaping the session through the oneway glass, but she didn't care.
Wolper turned on the tape recorder and recited the date and time. He had her give her name, then led her gently through her session with Gray, the shutdown of the MBI gear, then the sudden movement in the shadows. She glossed over her period of unconsciousness, still afraid she would be sent to the hospital if anyone found out about that.
"When did Gray kill Deputy Rivers?" Wolper asked.
Rivers. So that was the man's name. "After he knocked me down."
"You didn't shout for help, alert him somehow?"
She compromised with the truth. "I was woozy, disoriented. It all happened very fast."
"Did you see him kill the deputy?"
"No, I was amp; stunned."
"When he returned to you, was he wearing the deputy's pants over his jumpsuit?"
"Yes."
"If he had time to change, you must've been woozy for a couple of minutes."
Guilt made her impatient. "I wasn't timing it with a stopwatch," she snapped.
"All right." He let it go. "So Gray came back to take your jacket."
"Yes."
"And your wallet and car keys."
"Yes."
"But he didn't hurt you."
"He threatened me. But no, he didn't do anything."
"Kind of weird, isn't it? I mean, he's just murdered Deputy Rivers in cold blood. Then he comes back into the office and treats you with kid gloves."
"If that's how you describe having a screwdriver held to your throat."
"My point is, he could have killed you. He didn't."
"So?"
"So maybe this therapy of yours has actually had some effect."
Oddly, this particular thought had never occurred to her.
"He killed the deputy," she said slowly, "and he's abducted Meg."
"He killed the deputy because he had to. It was kill or be killed. As for your daughter, we don't know what he's thinking or what he'll do. If he let you live, it could mean he's having second thoughts about killing. It could mean he'll hesitate before hurting Meg."
"I'd like to believe that."
"Did you feel you were making progress with him?"
"I thought so, but he wasn't exactly the type to share his feelings."
"Hostile?"
"Sarcastic. Manipulative. Not as hostile as amp;" As Brand, she nearly said. But it wouldn't be appropriate to discuss Brand's treatment here, especially if other cops were listening on the other side of the mirror.
Still, the thought lingered. Brand amp;
"Robin?" Wolper was watching her. "You okay?"
She shook off whatever idea had half formed in her mind. "I've gone over this enough," she said.
"Yeah, I think you have."
"So what do we do now?" she whispered.
"We wait," Wolper said.
He had been right about that. They sat together for a while, bound by awkward silence, until he found an excuse to leave. Then she'd been alone. From beyond the closed door of the interview room came sounds of activityfootsteps, ringing phones, shouts, the slamming of doors and the sizzle of radios. She registered these noises distantly, like the confused memories of a dream.
Wolper returned twice with updates. The LAPD was working with the Sheriff's Department to set up roadblocks on desert roads near the previous crime scenes. All local law-enforcement agencies had been alerted to look for the Saab, for Gray, and for Meg. Hammond had gone public with an official statement on the escape and the abduction, though without mentioning Robin or Meg by name. Interviews of neighbors at the condo building had turned up nothing, and no clues had been found at her homeno indication of when or how Meg had been kidnapped or when she'd been taken.
There was nothing for Robin to do. But she couldn't just sit here. The enforced inactivity would make her crazy.
She fished her cell phone out of her purse and called Mrs. Grandy.
"Oh, dear, I've been talking to the police," the woman said after Robin identified herself. "Is Meg amp;? Has something happened?"
"She's missing. She's been abducted."
"Oh, dear, dear
amp;"
"You didn't see anything, I take it?" Robin knew Mrs. Grandy spent a good deal of her time sitting by the window, and she missed little of what went on in the courtyard below.
"Not a thing, I'm so sorry. I wasn't feeling well today, and I was lying down for most of the day. That's what I told the officers."
Robin had figured as much. There was no reason that she would be able to obtain information the police had overlooked. "Well, I just wanted to ask. If you remember anything"
"I wish I could help, dear. Has your husband been told yet?"
Dan. Robin had forgotten about him. She felt a pang of guilt. "No. I'd better let him know."
"Is he still in town?"
"Still? He hasn't been in LA in months. He lives in Santa Barbara."
"Wasn't he here yesterday?"
Robin blinked. "Well, no. Not that I know of. What makes you say that?"
"I just assumed that's who Meg was with."
"When?"
"Yesterday afternoon."
"You're saying someone was with Meg yesterday?"
"Why, yes. A man came to visit. Nicely dressed, jacket and tie. I've never met your husband, of course, but I thought it must be him."
"So it wasn't a high school student? One of Meg's friends?"
"Oh, certainly not. This man was about forty, I'd say. Wasn't it your husband?"
"I don't think so. Did you get a look at him?"
"My eyes aren't what they used to be. He had dark hair. I noticed that much. I think he was tall. Taller than Meg, when they stood together in the doorway. And she's getting to be quite tall for her age."
Dan was blond and not very tall. It didn't sound like him. "Did you see anything else?"
"Not really. Meg let him in. They seemed to know each other. They were talking. I didn't see him leave. I take my tea in the afternoon, you know, so I may have been in the kitchen amp;"
"Okay, Mrs. Grandy. Thanks."
"Should I have told this to the police? I didn't think"
"No, I'll take care of it. The police may want to talk to you again. Thanks very much."
Robin ended the call and sat unmoving for a minute.
In Dark Places Page 18