by Steve Gannon
“Right. So let me pose a hypothetical situation here. Suppose a criminal wanted to create a psychological backdoor for himself, an escape hatch in case he got caught at some future time. He buys the right books and bones up on a mental illness that can’t be disproved by physical testing. Paranoid schizophrenia, say. He goes to a few clinics and perfects his act, then gets some outpatient treatment-maybe even takes medication for a couple of years.”
“He wouldn’t even have to take the pills,” mused Berns, anticipating my line of reasoning. “They’d probably put him on something like Haldol. Most outpatient clinics don’t do blood-level monitoring on those types of drugs.”
“Fine,” I said. “Okay, let’s take it a step further. Our man stops getting treatment, but now he’s on record as being a psycho. Years later he’s arrested for something serious-murder, say-and he goes for an insanity defense. Unlike most scumbags who try to avoid first degree murder charges and a death penalty sentence by going the nut-cake route, our man’s got a medical history. He’s been off his medication for years, and the poor guy just couldn’t help himself. What’re his chances of skating?”
Berns stroked his chin pensively. “A lot better than without a prior history. Something like that could make a huge difference.”
“He could pull it off?”
“Maybe. With a longstanding record of mental illness, a slick lawyer, and the right jury-he might.”
50
Tuesday afternoon, having decided to spend New Year’s Eve at home, Victor Carns made an unsettling discovery, one that changed everything. He had just returned from a record store in Mission Viejo, where he’d purchased a Glen Gould disk and two Yo Yo Ma recordings. As he climbed from the cockpit of his Lamborghini, he dropped his keys. Bending to retrieve them, he spotted the antenna wire hidden behind his back left wheel. Less than an inch was exposed, but it was well defined in the backlight from across the garage. With a feeling of horror, Carns got down on his hands and knees. He looked under the frame. It was a transmitter.
They had found him.
But how?
He was sure he had escaped the police trap in Sherman Oaks without being followed.
What, then? The health clubs? The stolen license plates? The DMV trace? Lauren Van Owen?
Again, as he had repeatedly since learning that the blond newscaster had survived, he berated himself for not taking the time to dispose of her properly before fleeing her West LA condo. On the other hand, that the authorities hadn’t already come for him was proof she hadn’t managed to get a clear look at him-even when he’d held the phone to her mouth so she could speak with Kane. Nevertheless, leaving her alive was another unaccustomed error, one that disturbed and angered him. And once more, Kane had been involved.
Shaken, Carns rose to his knees. He left the matchbox-sized tracking device in place, fearing if he touched it, the police might be able to tell. Something like that might force their hand.
Think!
Mind racing, Carns pondered his situation.
Somehow they’d found him. But again, if they had enough for an arrest, or even grounds to search his estate, they would have already come.
Maybe they weren’t sure.
No, Carns decided, fighting a wave of panic. They knew. Maybe they couldn’t prove it, but they knew.
It didn’t matter how they had discovered him; what mattered now was what would follow. Music discs forgotten on the garage floor, Carns hurried into the house. His ankle still throbbed from that terrible night in Sherman Oaks, and he favored it as he moved from window to window. Staying well back from the glass, he searched the areas surrounding his estate.
There. The Southern California Edison truck at the bottom of the hill.
They had a work tent over a manhole at the intersection. Carns had noticed it early Saturday morning but hadn’t given it a second thought. Looking closer, he noted that the orange ventilation hose, a normal precaution for underground vaults where men are working, was conspicuously missing.
Proceeding through his house, Carns peeked out every window. Though he couldn’t spot them, he knew there had to be others. He considered calling the electric company regarding the street repair, just to be sure. He decided against it. The police were probably listening on his phone.
Think!
He had left nothing incriminating at the murder scenes. And with the exception of Lauren Van Owen, there had been no witnesses. That left whatever was in his house. And the cars.
There was little he could do now about the van and the Toyota. Maybe later, when things settled down. In the meantime, Carns assured himself, no one would find them or the articles they contained. He had leased the self-service garage under a false name, retrieved the vehicles only at night, and the storage rental fee was paid two years in advance.
The house, then.
Carns spent the next several hours disposing of all his mementos: tapes, slides, videos, clothing. Even the scrapbooks. He blanked the video and audio tapes with a bulk erasing magnet, then burned them in the living room fireplace, sending clouds of smoke billowing up the chimney. His digital recordings and slide collection followed. The women’s clothing proved the most difficult, requiring him to scissor the larger garments into pieces before piling them on the gas-fed blaze.
The prophylactics, he flushed down the toilet.
Ever since discovering the transmitter hidden on his car, Carns had felt a headache building. Before leaving the bathroom, he opened the medicine chest and took two Imitrex tablets. As he washed them down with a glass of water, he did a mental inventory of anything remaining that might tie him to the murders. He had worn newly purchased clothes for each adventure, disposing of them afterward. The mementos from the basement were gone. A box of latex gloves, the spectrum analyzer, and a few playthings from earlier games were still in the storage garage, along with the cars. Nothing to directly link him to the murders, but in aggregate, a breach in his defense.
Anything else?
The books!
Carns hurried to his office and stripped the hardback covers from his crime and psychology texts. He fed the pages, along with research he had done on numerous victims, through a document shredder. The covers and shredded paper went into the fire. Thirty minutes later nothing remained.
Satisfied he could do no more, Carns limped to his living room bar and poured a large glass of Scotch. He took a shuddering gulp from the cut-crystal tumbler, angrily contemplating the turn of events that had necessitated the loss of his precious souvenirs.
How had they found him?
With an increasing sense of outrage, Carns wrestled with the question. At last, though unable to arrive at a conclusion, his thoughts kept returning to a common dominator, a thread running through the entire fabric of recent events. The maggot appellation. The furtive meeting he had witnessed at the West LA health club. The blond reporter’s inflammatory broadcasts. The police trap in Sherman Oaks. His near-capture at Van Owen’s condo. And now this.
Kane.
Carns drained his Scotch and poured another. But instead of drinking it, he set aside the tumbler, his mind revisiting a dangerous stratagem that had occurred to him earlier that afternoon. At first it had seemed precipitous, even foolhardy; the product of anger, not logic. But the more he thought about it, the more the plan began to crystallize into what possessed the earmarks of an intriguing countermove.
Obviously, the police were hoping he would make a mistake. Now that he knew of their presence, he could suspend the game-indefinitely, if he had to. Well, maybe not indefinitely, but long enough. Unfortunately, he also realized that the watchers wouldn’t give up. They weren’t certain of his guilt. They couldn’t be; they would have taken action by now if they were. But if things went on too long, they’d eventually tire of waiting and come for him.
When they did, they would find nothing in his house. Nonetheless, a chance remained that with the publicity certain to follow, something unexpected might arise. For instance, som
eone at the rental garage might remember his face. A search there could prove disastrous. Yet paradoxically, the very police surveillance now in place offered a hope of exoneration. After all, what better proof of his innocence could there be than if another murder were to take place while he was being watched?
Slowly, a move that Carns had originally deemed unthinkable took shape in his mind. An hour later, after examining it from every angle, he knew it would work… if he had the nerve to pull it off.
Carns came to a decision. That night, if everything went as planned, he would turn adversity to advantage, eliminate all weaknesses, and settle a debt. Smiling, he retrieved his drink and raised his glass to toast his reprisal. But instead of drinking, he dumped the amber liquor into the sink. If he were to succeed tonight, he would need all his powers. And he would succeed.
He had no choice.
51
The lighted ball in Times Square wouldn’t descend for another hour, but already I felt myself growing progressively depressed. For some reason New Year’s Eve has always been a gloomy time for me, and this year, as I sat alone in an overstuffed armchair in Arnie’s living room, promised to be the worst. Glumly, I flipped on the TV. Minutes later, having tired of watching a crowd of celebrants jostling one another toward the magic midnight hour, I turned it off.
Earlier, Arnie and Stacy had left for a party at her studio in Venice. Though they had invited me to join them, I’d declined. Now, my mood plummeting, I began to wish I had accepted-deciding that even a room full of self-absorbed artists, sculptors, and art critics would be better than this.
With a sigh, I lifted the phone and dialed Catheryn’s mother in Santa Barbara. Moments later she answered. After warmly returning my holiday wishes, she informed me that Catheryn had temporarily returned with the children to Malibu, and she was attending a New Year’s Eve party that night at the home of Arthur West. Catheryn’s mother added that following the party, Catheryn planned to spend the night at the beach house, as by then it would be too late to return to Santa Barbara. Following a few more minutes of small talk, I hung up. I sat for a moment, dismayed that Catheryn hadn’t notified me of her plans to return to the beach house, even if it were only for a short time. True, I had assured her that Carns was safely under police surveillance, but still…
I briefly considered calling Arthur’s house. Deciding against it, I dialed the beach house instead, hoping to get one of the kids. When the machine picked up, I disconnected without leaving a message, remembering that on occasion Catheryn and I, like other parents caught in the holiday babysitter crunch, had brought our children with us to various New Year’s parties-including a past one at Arthur’s. Not an ideal solution but better than none, with older kids watching their younger peers in a room stocked with cookies, soft drinks, and videos.
As a precaution I contacted the Malibu sheriff’s station, identified myself, and requested that local units keep an eye on the beach house. Afterward boredom set in once more. Idly, I spent the next ten minutes calling friends in the department. Not surprisingly, everyone was out. I finally reached Paul Deluca on his cell. He, along with several members of the OC sheriff’s surveillance unit, was spending the evening in a van across from Carns’s estate.
“Anything happened recently?” I asked once Deluca had completed a colorful complaint about working on Christmas Eve.
“Naw,” Deluca answered. “He left for a couple hours. Gave the mobile guys something to do,” he added, referring to the six-car surveillance team stationed at various points around Coto to pick up Carns whenever he left. “Otherwise, things have been quiet. After doing some shopping, he came home, made a fire, and stayed in the rest of the day. Lights are on in all the windows. No movement inside. No calls, either.”
“You guys get a GPS transmitter on his car?”
“Yeah.”
“Did the van or the Toyota show up?”
“Nope.”
I thought a moment. “A fire, huh? It had to be seventy, seventy-five out today.”
“Closer to eighty down here. Maybe he has air conditioning. We sure as hell don’t.”
“Tough,” I said. “Listen, I’ll let you get back to whatever it is you’re not doing, but I just found out that Kate and the kids have returned to the beach house. If there’s any change in the situation at Carns’s, I want to know.”
“Kane, I hate to bring this up, but you’re no longer on the case. Snead made a big deal outta nobody talkin’ to you. If he finds out you’ve been checking up like this, he’s gonna-”
“I’ll handle Snead.”
Deluca hesitated, probably realizing that wasn’t an answer. “No problem,” he said anyway. “Say hi to Kate for me when you see her. And Happy New Year.
“Thanks, Paul. You, too.”
Allison sat up in bed. Her throat burned; her head throbbed; her entire body ached. She felt terrible. With a pang of self-pity, she realized she hadn’t had the flu this bad in years. But something had roused her from the medicine induced lethargy that had kept her under the covers most of the evening. What?
Callie?
No. She’s at the vet’s.
She glanced at a clock on her night table. The numerals were out. Puzzled, she reached over to turn on a bedside lamp. She froze as she heard a thump downstairs. A prickle shivered up her spine.
Someone was in the house.
I had been chewing on it for the past twenty minutes. My mind kept coming back to it, wouldn’t let it go.
Eighty degrees out, and Carns makes a fire?
Finally I dialed Deluca’s cell phone again.
Deluca answered on the second ring. “What’s the matter, Kane? No parties to go to?”
“Listen, Paul. This may be important. Are you sure about his making a fire?”
“I’m sure. Smoke was pouring out one of the big brick chimneys for most of the afternoon.”
“Anything unusual about it? The smoke, I mean.”
“It was kinda dense part of the time. Like whatever he had in the fireplace wasn’t burning right,” Deluca answered. A long pause. “Different colors, too,” he added quietly. “Gray, white, black. Come to think of it, when the wind changed I caught a whiff. Smelled like burning plastic.” Another long pause. “He made us, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how, but he did. He got rid of his souvenirs.”
“Damn. What now?”
“It’s not up to me. I’m off the investigation.”
“Wait a minute. What the…?”
“What happened?”
“The lights just went off. Every single one. Hold on.”
Ten seconds later Deluca came back on. “I checked with the guys on the other side. They say the same thing. All the lights went off at once.”
“Probably on a timer. Call him.”
“Are you serious?”
“If he’s there, say you got a wrong number.”
“What are you talking about- if he’s there? He’s gotta be there.”
Suddenly I remembered the shooting tunnel in Carns’s basement. At the time I had sensed something odd about it. Now I knew what it was. Even with the tunnel light bulbs off, there had still been a faint glimmer coming from the far end. “He’s out.”
“No way. We’ve been sitting on the house all day.”
“He got out a tunnel in the basement,” I explained, trying to recall which direction the shaft ran. “Check the bushes in the vacant lot behind the house. There’ll be a vault of some kind. Search for a metal hatch, a manhole cover, something like that.”
“Shit. If you’re right-”
“Call him. If you don’t, I will.”
“I’ll get back to you.” An instant later the line went dead.
As I waited for Deluca to ring back, I phoned the beach house again. Still no answer. Next I dialed Catheryn’s cell phone. Same result. Finally I tried Arthur West’s number. Someone finally picked up. Arthur.
“Hello, Arthur. Is Catheryn there?”
> Party noise blared in the background. “Sorry. You’ll have to speak up,” Arthur yelled.
“Is Catheryn there?” I repeated, raising my voice. “This is her husband.”
“Oh.” Arthur’s tone frosted noticeably. “Detective Kane.”
“Is she there?”
A hesitation. “She and the children left early. Something about Allison being home sick with the flu.”
“Allison didn’t come to the party?”
“No. Travis and Nate did, but not her.”
“Damn.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I’m not sure. Thanks, Arthur. I owe you one.”
“Anytime,” said Arthur, his voice tinged with sarcasm.
“How’s the hand?”
“Better. No thanks to you.”
“Listen, Arthur. I was out of line at the Music Center. I’m sorry. If it’ll square things, you’re welcome to take a free poke at me anytime you want.”
“An interesting proposal,” said Arthur, thawing slightly. “One day I may take you up on it.”
Victor Carns stood in the darkened living room. Fighting to control his growing excitement, he checked the glowing numerals on his watch: 12:31 PM. He was certain they would be home before long, returning from whatever celebration they’d attended.
As he waited, he reflected on his escape from the police cordon, surprised at how easy it had been. Out the tunnel, a crawl through the bushes to Via Pajaro, across several backyards, and a jog to the west gate. Once past the gate he’d met a taxi summoned earlier using one of his untraceable cellular phones. Twenty minutes later he had disembarked near the Mission Viejo rental garage. Simple. And returning would be just as easy, provided he got back before dawn.
He had driven the van to a number of disposal sites, getting rid of everything, even the spectrum analyzer. He saved only the few items he would need for this final encounter. As with the mementos burned at his estate, he regretted losing the playthings stored in his garage. His souvenirs from previous games often came in handy, like the police ID he had used to enter the reporter’s condo. Still, it had to be done.