The smell of impending rain in the air.
Back inside, feeling grumbly and not up to the day.
The house was an old adobe, one of only a handful in Redlands, which was a town known for its beautiful array of homes. It was laid out hacienda-style, so he had to pad across the cold stone floor of the hallway. Past the kids’ rooms, through the living room (careful not to stub his toes on unseen furniture), before he could make it to the kitchen. Clear to the other side of the house. He opened the fridge, grabbed a carton of orange juice. He drank the last of it directly from the carton. Thought better of it, and went to get a glass. He checked the water cooler — half full. Two empty bottles beside the cooler, on the red rile floor. His main drinking problem was water itself. He could not get enough. Poured out a glass or two of pure spring water "from the purest spring of California," so said the company's label. Drank it down.
Dehydrated. That's what you are. Scribbled out a reminder note for himself on the small chalk board next to the fridge: CALL WATER GUY. GET MORE AGUA.
Beneath this, he left a note for his wife that she would probably not see until his workday had begun: "I already miss you. Let's take the kids for pizza tonight. Chuck E. Cheese. Small celebration for Mark." His son had just lost another baby tooth, bravely, and the tooth fairy hadn't visited yet.
Then, he sat down at the kitchen table, looking out at the dark garden. Slowly, the light came up. He sat and watched the sun’s early light spray color across the bougainvillea that was still flowering pink and red across the garden wall. The clouds moved in swiftly from the west, dimming the sun’s early brilliance.
He could not get his mind off the one thing he wished he didn’t have to think about.
Work.
“You know?” he said to his wife a few nights back. “Since I’ve worked there, I’ve seen twelve murder cases. On premises. Eight suicides. Three eyes taken out. One case of genitals being ripped off. Other assorted mutilation. It’s really the Welcome Wagon to Hell, isn’t it?”
And she had looked at him. That look of hers that was part surrender and part fire. Then, she said, “But you’re still going back there. I know you. Even though you know I hate that you do it. And you know what danger it put the kids in—no matter if that was a fluke. There’s potential danger. You’re still going.”
“Here's what I believe. I believe that my work there does some good. That if I keep learning, keep observing and interacting with these kinds of killers, I can build from it so that, in understanding them and how they operate, people can be protected. They're not monsters, even though they do monstrous things. I think they're throwbacks, at least the psychopaths. And they were okay at one point in their lives, until a switch got turned on. Something went wrong. Maybe it was abuse. Maybe it was just hormones. But something turned on. And if I can help the psychiatrists and others, be part of that team, to try and see where the switch is, maybe there's a way to turn it off.
His wife had seemed less sure. "I think you see this as a mission. But it's not. There are other jobs you can do."
"That's why I'm going for my master's."
"Even with a master's degree, I know you," she said. "You're still going to work with them."
"This is my life's work, Carly. I'm nearly forty. This is what I was meant to do. I know it's going to lead to the right place. I know it in my heart."
“All right,” she said. “I'll try and understand. But if there's an opportunity to get out of there, if another job presents itself that puts you out of the line of fire of those criminals, I want you to consider it."
"I will," he told her.
And this particular morning, he had to go back to that place. It wasn’t like living in Redlands with a mortgage and kids in school and a flat tire on the way to the local supermarket.
It was a territory of madness.
2
When the phone rang, he let the machine pick it up. It would be Anderson calling to make sure Trey was ready to get back to the job.
Psychiatric Technician, Supervisor of D Ward at the maximum security hospital called Darden State.
Chapter Six
It didn't like when the little birds, the angels, got out of the tape and rope.
The little bird had begun crawling through the space between the stone rooms. The little bird chirped a little, not even knowing that she chirped, and it wanted to cup the bird in his hands and make it all calm and quiet again.
It got down on his hands and knees. It sucked in his gut, drawing his shirt over his head, the sweat clinging to him even half-naked, like grease from an old fryer. The stink rose up from the solid dirt. On its elbows, crawling like a serpent, it went to where the little bird sat crouching, now, in a dark corner.
Flickering lights caught flashes of her face.
The little bird with the sad eyes and the dark hair.
It crawled toward the child, calling the little bird by name, keeping the hypodermic needle hidden in its left hand, the tip of the needle poking out between its fingers.
From the mattress in the corner, it heard the moans and whimpers, but blocked it out. Ruthie is dead, it thought. Dead. Gone to Hell. Ruthie was a whore. Ruthie was born of Satan. It's the voice of Hell coming up from the water.
It calls to the little bird instead. "Don't be afraid, little bird. Don't be afraid."
Chapter Seven
In December, the water flows high along the naturally-formed ditches, or washes, coming down from the San Bernardino Mountains. The water, nearly ice cold, follows a trail of what had once been dry riverbed down to the larger Santa Ana Wash. There, it creates a huge river in the winter from what had just been a shallow summer trickle. In the unincorporated area of the Santa Ana River, running between Riverside and an unincorporated area called Bannock, the Wash floods while stinging nettles and young jacaranda trees are covered beneath it. This onslaught of water continues west, until eventually it drains into the Pacific Ocean.
In the spring, by May, the rivers will begin drying again in the near-desert of the valley, until finally they will be nothing but a memory come June.
But in December, the Christmas season, the water is high and washes all kinds of debris with it along the banks, particularly after a sudden and unexpected rainfall.
Victor Robles and his sister Maria stood on the bank just above the rushing water. School would start in ten minutes, but they had some time to do their daily treasure hunting. The Wash sometimes produced beautiful garnets that they brought to their mother, and then, sometimes she put them into jewelry she made for Maria. The rain battered at them, but Victor enjoyed it, moving out from under the umbrella his sister carried. Despite that fact that it was December, this was still southern California, at the edge of the desert, and it was seventy one degrees.
He had already found some pretty stones and one perfect garnet, and this was an exciting find for the first heavy rain since October.
Usually he just found old aluminum cans, or occasionally a lone shoe. He shouted for Maria to try and grab the branch that jutted up from the rushing brown water. She either couldn’t hear him or didn’t want to help. She stood up the bank, the large umbrella down around her eyes.
“Your loss!” he cried out. There was something out in the water, hanging from branches. A nest? Too far for him to reach without falling in the water. He stepped onto a large stone. He felt the icy water wash across his Nikes but it put him closer to the branch. He tried to focus on it while the gray rain beat down, his glasses fogged, he heard his sister cry out. He looked up to her, and saw that she was pointing to the small island of ragged trees at the middle of the river.
There, among their scraggly branches, was something that looked like brightly colored cloth.
Victor took off his glasses, rubbing the fog away. He put them back on, and squinted.
He thought he was seeing an angel. It had wings tinged red around its neck. The tips of its feet seemed to be just barely tip-toeing on water. But it was still a bl
ur, and something in his young brain could not quite understand what he was seeing.
Its head seemed to hang down, and he thought it might be someone's idea of a joke: putting a dummy out there.
He almost fell into the river when he recognized what it was.
Later, he told the police that he thought the little girl was still alive, because her legs seemed to move.
But that had probably been the water rushing over the victim’s feet.
Victor Robles and his sister never saw the dead girl’s face.
Chapter Eight
5:55 a.m., town of San Pascal, San Pascal Valley, 68 degrees
1
Jane Laymon awoke that morning, with her boyfriend's head pressed down on her breasts.
Pushed him away. He rolled back on his side, his eyes lazily opening to the misty darkness. Then, he drew back to her, kissing her shoulder. He was sort of cute, in a way that might normally arouse her, but not this early in the morning, and not when she had so much to get done. He had short dark hair, and smelled like limes to her. It was the cologne he wore. It reminded her of islands and something of the beach. When she'd met him, it had been the first thing she noticed: his scent.
He rolled back toward her and murmured something about "horny."
"No way. And not with that kind of breath." She glanced at the clock. She'd had about six hours' of sleep. She rolled onto her stomach, using her elbows to prop her up. Glanced out the window over the bed. Outside, it was still dark, but lightening. Noise and smell of traffic out on the freeway, just down the hill. Her apartment faced the smog most of the year, but in the winter, the air was clear.
She felt his hands rubbing her lower back.
"I love you, baby," he said. Here was the thing about Danny. He was too good looking for his own good. Or her good. She kept wondering if she really cared for him, or if, after her last, botched relationship with Rick Ramirez, that she was just looking for a safe harbor that would not put her through the ringer. Danny was the polar opposite of Rick. He was clean-cut, her age, athletic, loved his job, loved kids, loved getting out and coaching the local Boy's Club basketball team, loved dropping the whole police thing for a fun day riding horses up in Holcomb Valley, or getting out to the beach in L.A. to windsurf. And he loved his job. Just the kind of guy her mother wanted her to marry, or at least give her grandchildren by. Where Rick had come with his own baggage — a bitterness about women from his divorce, had been nearly 38, which meant they had very little in common other than mutual attraction; Danny had arrived with none of this. He had dated a few other women, but did not have the long list that Rick had trailing him.
So, everything about Danny should've made her fall in love with him.
But she hadn't fallen in love yet.
She had fallen in like. And that was good enough for now.
"Let's play," Danny murmured, kissing her gently on the lips. He was aroused, and she knew that if she stayed in bed another minute, she might be also, but she had to remember that it was a work day. Not a play day.
"I'll see you tonight." She leaned back, and looked at his sleepy face and half-lidded eyes. He had something between a snore and a smile on his face. "You can stay in bed for two more hours. I've got to get going."
Danny pressed his hands along her stomach and sides, and whispered something that was meant to be sweet but just meant to her that he was tired of the sexual cooling they'd had for the past few days. The relationship had progressed from hot and heavy over the months they'd known each other to a regular routine.
It wasn't quite as romantic or spontaneous as it had been in its first flush.
Some days, he took second place to her work.
She liked Danny. A lot.
She even hoped they had more of a future together than just and on again off again thing, like they'd had so far.
She liked nearly everything about him. Including the sex.
But she loved her work.
Loved it.
They were both cops. She was a newly minted detective, and he was busting his chops over in San Bernardino.
"I can't slack off yet," she whispered to him, kissing him too lightly on the mouth. "You sleep some more. I need to hit the road."
"It's okay," he murmured. "I'll get up in a sec and make the coffee."
But, even after her shower, he was still in bed, face down, catching the last of his sleep before the alarm on his watch would go off.
2
Naked, still dripping water, she went to the kitchen and set the coffee maker going. She heard the baby crying in the apartment next to hers.
She went to the walk-in closet, the one luxury that her small apartment afforded. She went in, grabbed her running shorts, sports bra and oversized t-shirt for her morning run. She dressed quickly, tying her hair back in a ponytail to keep it from flying all over the place for her run.
In the bedroom, she slipped into her Nikes. Danny, in bed, was just snarfling awake. "You don't have to leave so early," he murmured, rolling onto his back, stretching out like a cat with the canary in its mouth. "Just stay and...cuddle."
"I've got 24 hours to requalify," she said. "Easy for you to sleep in. You don't have a jerk like Fasteau on you making comments about how girls can't shoot."
"You're a perfectly good shot," he said. "Jesus, this discussion gets old."
"Not to Fasteau. Not to the department. Maybe you'd take it less likely if some woman sat around telling you how lousy a shot you were all the time she looked at your balls."
"Keep talking dirty to me," he laughed.
"It's not funny. He's got this pissing contest going with me, and it's driving me nuts," then, much against her intention, she started laughing, too. "Why is this driving me up a wall? Why?"
"Riddle me this, Cat Woman, what's going on with you on the target range?"
"I don't know. I guess I just tense up. I guess I think about dad and how he never really wanted me to hold a gun. And, well, even if I try not to think about it, I do."
"You just need to relax when you shoot," he said. "It's easier to hit the targets when you don't think about it."
"You sound like Fasteau."
"And you sound unsure of yourself. He's a moron. You'll requalify. Don't worry."
"Tomorrow, I have to. If I don't get past firearm requalification procedures, I'm screwed. So today, I need to get out and prepare. If I don't have this down by tomorrow, I'm screwed."
"Six months of getting up at some ungodly hour to go out and take shots at the range. You'd do better just to come back to bed and cuddle," he said it sweetly, but it was not what she wanted to hear.
Jane didn't want to say what she thought about this comment. She didn't want to explain to him that she had to be better than the rest of her team. That the men she worked with still, in the 21st century, didn't treat women co-workers as well as they treated other men. That she had to be smarter, faster, and even possess a better sense of humor than her bosses in order for to her move ahead in her investigative work.
Instead, she just told him, "It's not the cuddling I'm worried about." Then, she went to him and kissed him on the lips, and said, "I've just got to stay motivated. That's all. I'll see you tonight."
3
She was motivated as hell. She had to be: the San Pascal Special Investigations Unit was small, consisted of men (except for her, the trainee), and she knew she had to be better than any of the others in order to gain experience and get noticed. She was the lowest on the totem pole. But she intended to be the best.
At everything.
So far, it had worked, but not to the extent she'd wanted.
And the one thing she truly sucked at was handling her gun. Hitting targets.
Worse, her partner, Fasteau rode her ass for it, and made her feel as if her qualification the year before was a fluke.
Worst of all, she was afraid that he was right.
Her morning began early, usually just before 6 a.m., with a three mile run around the
reservoir, followed by checking her email for messages from Sykes, who was always one step ahead of her on the investigations, and who, along with Tryon over in Riverside, had taken her under their wing to try and get her more involved in ongoing investigations rather than the crib deaths she ended up having to spend time on. After her run, and her email check, she tried to put in at least an hour down at the firing range over in San Bernardino, and then, the real workday began.
The weapons training range had been built by U.S. Marines just about the time that Jane had entered the police force, and it was primarily used for training San Bernardino County police in special tactical maneuvers. Jane loved the place. It had towers and barricades, and an amazing target range. It made practice fun, although it never helped if Fasteau came out and jeered from one of the towers. She had been given a special dispensation to use the firing range to practice, although there was a perfectly good shooting range in her own county. But the San Bernardino facility was top notch. It gave her a heightened sense of what her job was: to stop the bad guys.
That was how she saw it.
She was still a little unsteady with her 9mm Glock 17.
But she was getting better.
4
She was a big woman, slender but imposing, from a race of giants (her father's side, Northern European, and from this she got height) although she was not quite six feet tall. Jet black straight hair, dark eyes, courtesy of her Native-American side, from the Cahuilla tribe, which was local to the San Bernardino area. She was not quite twenty six years old. She looked like an amazon, and she knew it helped her in her investigative work because her height was the first thing that intimidated the other detectives and the cops and even the coroner at times. Second thing was her voice, a husky alto that her mother thought made her sound like a young Lauren Bacall, made huskier by a cigarette habit she’d had to kick by the age of eighteen because it slowed her down on the basketball court, but the voice remained husky and scratchy, and she used it when the men at the San Pascal County Sheriff’s office began to treat her the way they treated the girls in the office. But she had one problem that was more a badge of honor about the Good Old Boys than anything else, since she didn’t think she’d ever have to use it in the field: Jane Laymon was a lousy shot, and she knew it, although she kept covering her ass by getting over to the shooting range just after rising at least five days a week.
Criminally Insane: The Series (Bad Karma, Red Angel, Night Cage Omnibus) (The Criminally Insane Series) Page 21