The Devil's Menagerie

by Louis Charbonneau

  To ease the pressure, tonight he could dig out some of his hardcore videos, the ones he had picked up in Amsterdam. Or there was a porno film shop outside of San Carlos—he had noticed it driving in—he could stop there and pick up something new. Go back to the condo like the other commuters, he thought, kick back, have a beer, enjoy the show.

  Think about the next one.

  GLENDA DROPPED THE phone in its cradle as if it burned her fingers.

  It was him. There was no doubt in her mind. How had he known exactly when to call? She hadn’t been home more than a half hour. Was he watching—?

  She ran upstairs and, standing to the side of the front windows of her bedroom, peered through the curtains down at the street. A man in a tan coverall with a Southern California Edison Company logo on his chest was coming down the side path from the Schneider house across the way. She watched him take a shortcut across the neighboring lawn and turn into the next yard. Was the meter reader an imposter? He was well built, Ralph’s height …

  Stop it!

  She was becoming paranoid. It was absurd. The Edison truck was clearly visible at the end of the block where the meter reader always parked the van. The other cars parked along the street were also familiar. No one was sitting inside one of them, watching her house. Watching her turn into the drive with Elli, watching Richie alight from his bus …

  This is what he wants, she thought, her lips tightening. He remembers how easy it was to make her fall apart. How quickly her confidence was shattered, her pride shredded, until she jumped at the sound of his voice as if it were a whip flaying her flesh.

  He thinks I’m the same woman, and I’m not.

  The self-assertion startled her. She stood very still, as if any movement might shatter the fragile truth she had uncovered.

  She was scared, she couldn’t deny that. When she remembered looking into Ralph’s pale gray eyes, cold as Antarctic ice, what she recalled most vividly was that nothing human looked back at her—no sign of pity or remorse, no understanding of the pain he inflicted. Because she knew what he was capable of, Ralph could still frighten her, but she was not reduced to jelly. If he expected to deal with the whimpering girl he had once tried to destroy, he was making a mistake. Maybe she could turn that against him.

  But not alone.

  Since Friday night she had avoided telling Dave all the ugly details about her first marriage. She couldn’t put it off any longer. He had to be made to understand that Ralph Beringer was not an inconvenience from her past, he was dangerous.

  Soon, she knew, Ralph would not be satisfied with harassing telephone calls.

  But there were things she could do before talking to Dave. Basic precautions to take. Locking doors and windows, for instance.

  The thought galvanized her. She went around the upstairs rooms first. All had older, double-hung windows in wooden frames. Although each had once been fitted with simple flip-out metal stoppers, over time some of these basic security devices had broken or been removed. She closed the stoppers that were still in place, leaving two windows in Richie’s room unsecured.

  Downstairs was the same story. Several windows were frozen by layers of old paint. No intruder could pry them open easily. Stoppers were missing from several others, and Dave had never got around to installing the dead bolt he had purchased for the back door. What good was served by the dead bolt on the front door if someone could just open the back door with a stiff plastic credit card and walk in?

  The two children were in the den. They were allowed an hour of television after school before Richie started on his homework.

  Glenda would be glad when Elli was far enough along in school to have homework assignments. That might quiet the nightly protests over more television. Elli couldn’t understand why she couldn’t watch TV just because Richie had homework.

  “Come on, guys, put on a sweater or a jacket. We’re going to Home Depot.” She shushed the instant protests. “I have to pick up a few things and you’re not staying here alone, so there’s no point in arguing.”

  “I got work to do,” Richie complained.

  “Well, you’re not doing it right now, so you can come along. I may need you to watch Elli, and you can help me pick out some window locks.”

  “Whatta we need window locks for?”

  The afternoon was turning cooler. The weather seemed to be in suspense since last week’s fires, as if it couldn’t decide what to do as an encore for October. Another high pressure system over Utah and Nevada might push hot, dry Santa Ana winds into the Southland, escalating another fire threat, or, if the high pressure dissipated, it would clear the way for long-needed Pacific storms to sweep in, bringing rain, cold, freeway accidents and mud slides in the fire-ravaged hills. If Southern California weather was frequently unpredictable, it still had its patterns.

  So did people, Glenda thought.

  She checked her side-and rear-view mirrors as she drove. She didn’t spot a car that looked familiar, or one that stayed behind her when she made several turns to alter her normal route.

  Home Depot’s parking lot was crowded as usual and she had to park some distance from the entrance. She kept Richie and Elli in front of her while her gaze ranged back and forth along adjoining aisles. Would Ralph confront her in so public a place? Although she didn’t think so, Ralph was even less predictable than the weather.

  Richie’s protests had been mild because he actually enjoyed wandering around the aisles packed with hardware and lumber and home improvement needs. Old-fashioned hardware stores had been more fun, as Glenda remembered them, but few of them remained. The Depot was about all that was left anymore.

  She held Elli’s hand as she hunted along a section displaying various door and window locks and security devices. Twice, when Richie started to wander off, she called him back. The third time she told him she needed his advice on what kind of stoppers to choose. Whether convinced by the ruse or not, Richie put his mind to the problem with typical intensity. He pointed out some easy-to-install devices for wood-frame windows that seemed more intruder-proof than those Glenda had had in mind.

  As they walked out of Home Depot with their purchases, a fist of tension gripped Glenda’s stomach. Her eyes searched the faces around her, jumping nervously back and forth to survey the parking lot. She felt Richie’s curious gaze. Was she that obvious?

  Driving home, she began to relax. At least she was doing something herself, not simply waiting for him to act. As soon as she could find the right moment she would talk to Dave—not only about what Ralph had done to her in the past, but about setting up some ground rules for now, especially for Richie and Elli.

  Their wide, tree-shaded street seemed quiet and peaceful in the dappled late afternoon light. It was a street populated by ordinary, decent people, the kind Dave put his faith in. Trusting people. People who watched the TV news every night and were shocked by reports of drive-by shootings and carjackings, people who were horrified by lurid tales of the atrocities committed by the Jeffrey Dahmers, Hillside Stranglers and Night Stalkers, people who remained comfortably assured that such disasters could never happen to them.

  Glenda was not naive enough to believe that hers was a Street of Dreams where, behind the clean lace curtains, there were no drunken rages, petty burglaries, divorces and betrayals and all the other conflicts and cancers that afflicted the human race. Overall, however, she had always felt the neighborhood to be what the local real-estate ads proclaimed—a nice place to raise your children, enjoy barbecues with your neighbors, go to church on Sunday.

  Entering the quiet house, Glenda felt a momentary anxiety. The children’s suddenly noisy contentiousness, along with a hasty perusal of the downstairs rooms, left her relieved and feeling a little foolish. She installed two of the new stoppers on the dining room windows, left the others for later, and started preparing dinner.

  Time passed. Cars came and went along the street in the long autumn twilight. Glenda normally had dinner ready at six o’clock. Dave w
as almost always home before then, in time to have his ritual glass of wine—he had believed a 60 Minutes story suggesting that Frenchmen lived longer because they drank red wine every day. Tonight, however, six o’clock came and went. She turned the oven temperature down to keep the chicken-and-rice casserole warm without having it shrivel up.

  At six-thirty she called Dave’s office at San Carlos College. She let the phone ring ten times before hanging up.

  She had barely put the phone down when its strident ring made her jump. She snatched it from its cradle. “Dave? Where are you?”

  Silence answered her. No, not total silence, she realized. The hand holding the phone began to shake.

  “It won’t do any good,” a voice whispered, unrecognizable. “Nothing will, you know that, don’t you?”

  “Ralph?” Her cry was shrill. “Ralph, God damn you—”

  The infuriating drone of a broken connection caused her to hurl the phone against the wall. The crash brought Richie running. He stopped, wide-eyed with wonder, in the kitchen doorway.

  Fifteen

  THE SAN CARLOS PD was a small department serving a college town with a population of 28,000 at the last census. Pranks, disturbances and petty thefts on the San Carlos College campus—the usual complaints—were generally left to the college’s security office. The Investigation Unit at the SCPD handled more serious crimes. It consisted of a half-dozen ranked detectives and clerical support personnel. The busiest desk was Robbery-Burglary, manned by two investigators sharing a corner of the squad room with Tim Braden, whose desk was officially called Violent Crimes.

  Nearby Los Angeles had recorded more than one thousand murders the previous year, or about three a day. San Carlos had had three murders on its books for the entire year. Two had been the result of family disputes, the other a shooting during an armed robbery.

  Braden was at his desk Wednesday morning when a fairly tall, well-dressed woman entered the squad room, glancing around tentatively as if she were looking for someone. There was a suspension of activity in the room, an all-male bastion except for Lillian Peters in records and Linda Perez on the Domestic Complaints desk. The hush caught Braden’s attention. Glancing up, he saw a blond woman in a dark blue suit saying something to Peters, who nodded toward Braden over her shoulder.

  A half-dozen pairs of eyes watched the woman’s progress across the room to Braden’s corner, where his desk was back-to-back with the one shared by the two investigators in Robbery-Burglary. The woman was not skinny but in very solid shape, Braden thought. She wore the crisply tailored Ann Taylor suit over a powder blue blouse. Sensible walking shoes with low heels. Braden’s appraisal didn’t miss the trim calves and ankles.

  “Detective Braden? I’m Agent Younger … from the FBI’s Investigative Support Unit?”

  Eastern seaboard accent, not unpleasant, the voice a little husky and well-modulated, gray eyes cool and contained. Braden’s blank expression earned him a small frown.

  “You didn’t hear from Quantico? That I was coming?” She was obviously surprised. “You are Detective Braden?”

  “Uh, yeah. Is everything a question with you?” He was thinking that he really liked the sound of her voice, but his flip comment came out as sarcasm.

  A flat film dropped over the FBI agent’s eyes, like shutters closing. “Not if I get an answer the first time, Detective.”

  Braden waited another moment. The truth was, she flustered him a little. Brisk, self-possesesed career women as attractive as this one tended to do that. Braden hesitated over a question as simple as whether or not he was supposed to stand up and shove a hand at her, something he would have done automatically if she were a male agent. What was an FBI agent doing here, anyway? And what was he supposed to have heard from Quantico, which was always on the line to him with the latest gossip?

  He gestured toward a wooden chair beside his desk. “I’m Braden. What unit did you say that was?”

  “Investigative Support. You’ve heard of it as the Behavioral Science Unit, maybe?”

  “Maybe.” That got under his skin a little. “Look, I’m kinda busy—”

  “Let’s understand each other, Detective Braden,” she said pleasantly. “I know local law enforcement officers don’t generally do handsprings when they hear anything with the word Fed in it. But we received your VICAP report … on the Edith Foster killing?” The questioning lilt again caught Braden’s ear. “I’m here as a consultant and adviser, that’s all.”

  “Well, I appreciate that, Ms. Younger, but the Foster killing isn’t a federal case.”

  She hesitated, as if deciding how much to say to him. “There are factors that lead us to believe Foster may have been attacked by a repeat killer. We’ve done a great deal of work on psychological profiles of serial killers that may be of help—”

  “I’d really like to sit down with you and talk about killer profiles and all that,” Braden cut her off impatiently. “But like I said, I’m kinda busy here. I don’t have a serial killer. What I’ve got is a single homicide, a nineteen-year-old girl stabbed and beaten to death, some wacko out there thinks he’s got away with it. We can have our meeting later—”

  “Don’t patronize me, Detective.”

  Agent Younger didn’t raise her voice but its edge cut through the background babble in the room. Faces turned toward them. Braden recognized the stiff-backed reaction he had seen before in women invading traditional male enclaves—female cops and district attorneys, for example. The agent’s expression said she had been through this before. It had probably been the same in the Bureau when she started out. You had to prove yourself every step of the way, the look said, you couldn’t back down an inch or show any weakness, you couldn’t take any bullshit or they would just pile it higher.

  She leaned forward over the corner of Braden’s desk, speaking low enough so that only he could hear. “Like I told you, Detective Braden, I’m here to help, not to invade your precious territory. But if that’s the way you want it, we can play it your way. I didn’t fly out here just to get some California sunshine, which I haven’t seen much of this morning anyway. If what I believe happened here in San Carlos holds up, there’s a lot about this homicide of yours you don’t know and apparently can’t be bothered to find out. If it’s too much trouble for you to work with me, as soon as I’ve had a chance to look into this case on my own, if what I think happened stands up I’ll get on to Washington and let them take it from there. I believe there’s a jurisdictional question here; the victim was found on U.S. government property and county detectives were first at the scene. The way it looks to me, Detective, you won’t have to bother about the case at all for long. You won’t have to worry about cooperation or civility or even being professional.”

  “Take it easy—”

  “I am taking it easy. You want to see hard, Braden, just stick around.”

  A slow, hot flush crept up Braden’s neck. He watched the FBI agent stalk out of the squad room, brushing past a startled uniform at the doorway. Even in that moment he was able to admire the way her hips swiveled when she walked off stiff-legged like that, tight calf muscles and trim ankles and rhythmic little jerks of her hips. Solid hips, Braden thought. His mother would have approved, thinking of grandchildren. What made him think of that? Did it make him a sexist pig in addition to being a jerk?

  Across the room a detective started to clap, and others joined in. “Way to go, Timmy!”

  The grins were not all supportive. Braden had never become Mr. Popularity in the SCPD squad room, in large part because he had vaulted over others in rank when he was brought in from the outside, but also because he had been touchy and aloof in the beginning. He had been variously viewed as (a) the Asshole Big City Detective who had come to show all the cops in the little hick town how it was done; (b) the Asshole Big City Detective who, having lost his head and his job in Los Angeles, had brought to the San Carlos PD a notoriety it didn’t need; (c) the Asshole Big City Detective who was too good to mingle with
the little people; or (d) the Asshole Big City Detective with an attitude.

  Well, he had had an attitude all right, Braden grudgingly acknowledged. Bitter, feeling used, angry over the injustice of the hand he had been dealt, it had taken him a while to remember his father’s sensible advice. “Play out the hand, son. You won’t always like the cards you get, but look around the table. You won’t see many happy smiles.” An avid Saturday night poker player, Frank Braden had leaned heavily on gambler’s clichés. “A royal flush is like winning the lottery. It’s not something to count on.” “Don’t worry about a man’s eyes, Tim, worry about his hands.” There was an exception to the latter rule. “Unless they’re dead eyes. You see a man at the table with dead eyes, real dead eyes, you better know you’re good or find yourself another game.”

  Braden had begun to earn some respect in the squad room, mostly by keeping his mouth shut and doing his job. But the Edith Foster case was his first tough challenge since joining the SCPD, and he knew there were some in the room who were waiting for him to trip and fall flat on his face.

  Behind him a voice said, “Come in here, Braden.”

  It wasn’t a request. Captain Hummel’s tone was its usual roll of gravel down a chute. Braden rolled his eyes at the two suits from Robbery and followed the captain into the fishbowl.

  “I got to hand it to you, Braden, you sure have a way with women.”

  “She had no call to—”

  “You were brushing her off.”

  Braden sighed. “Come on, Captain … psychological profiling on this case? What’s that all about?”

  “I’m gonna let you off the hook this time, Detective, because I didn’t get this memo over to you this morning. Goddam civilian review board meeting, how the hell are we supposed to get any work done?” Hummel pushed a piece of paper across his desk at Braden. It was a fax under the letterhead of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Braden ran his eye quickly down the sheet. It told him pretty much what the female special agent had said, that she was being sent out to advise and consult.