"And the other bastard could be some nutcase Pelley hooked up with at the halfway house, Alex. I saw the guys living there. Not the Kiwanis Club. Okay, I'm going back, gonna be a little more assertive. Gonna continue patrolling Ramparts on my own, too. Keep checking the bum haunts. Play more phone tag with other divisions, neighboring cities, in case Pelley and/or Nut Buddy has been a bad boy somewhere else. Though the site of the Beattys' murders says they're still local. Which makes sense. They probably have no wheels, can't hit the freeway."
That reminded me of something. "The first time we discussed Richard, we talked about someone without a car. Maybe a bus rider. Same for Claire's phantom boyfriend."
"There you go," he said. "Bus-riding lunatics. You said he wouldn't look crazy. How do you feel about that, now?"
"Pretty much the same," I said. "All four murders were planned and meticulous. Whoever killed Richard and Claire had the sense not to steal their cars. And murdering the Beattys on the same night adds another level of calculation. Choreography. So if Pelley is involved, he's probably not actively psychotic. At least not externally. Don't forget, they let him out. He must've appeared coherent."
"When he kills, he's neat. That makes me feel a whole lot better." Shaking his head, Milo reached for the car door.
I said, "So theTreadway thing's off the table, completely?"
"You don't want to let go of it?"
"Those clippings bother me, Milo. Whatever Pelley's role in all this, something went on between Claire and Peake. She sought him out, made him a project. He predicted her murder. Sixteen years ago, he took out Brittany Ardullo's eyes. Claire's eyes were also targeted. It's almost as if he'd been trying to connect the two crimes-somehow relive his past, using a surrogate."
"The Beattys' eyes weren't messed with."
"But Richard's eyes were taken. Too much variation, too much that doesn't fit. Peake's the only link. If we understand more about him-his history-it may get us closer to Pelley. And whoever else is involved."
He swung the door open. "I just don't have the time, Alex. But if you want to go out there, fine. I appreciate the effort- I'll even phone Bunker Protection, see if I can get them to be cooperative. Meanwhile, I go nut-hunting right here on the streets."
"Good luck," I said.
"Luck doesn't seem to be cutting it." He withdrew his hand from the door and placed it on my shoulder. "I'm being a cranky bastard, aren't I? Sorry. Not enough sleep, too much futility."
"Don't sweat it."
"Let me apologize anyway. Contrition's good for the soul. And thanks for all your time on this. I mean it."
"My thanks will be your getting good grades and cleaning your room."
He laughed. Much too loudly. But maybe it helped.
Chapter 21
Twenty miles North of L.A., everything empties.
I'd stopped at home long enough to pick up and scan the articles I'd photocopied at the library, gulp down some coffee, and get back on the freeway. The 405 took me to the 101 and finally Interstate 5, this time headed north. The last fast-food signs had been five miles back and I shared the freeway with flatbeds hauling hay, long-distance movers, the odd car, a few Winnebagos lumbering in the slow lane.
I had a heavy foot, speeding past brown, rumpled-blanket mountains, groves of scrub oak and pine and California pepper trees, the occasional grazing horse. The heat hadn't let up, but the sky was awash with pretty clouds-lavender-gray swirls, satin-shiny, as if an old wedding dress had been draped over the world.
The clippings had given me three possible contacts: Teo-doro Alarcon, the ranch superintendent who'd found the bodies; Sheriff Jacob Haas; and the only other person to comment on Ardis Peake's strange behavior without protection of anonymity, a kid named Derrick Crimmins. No listings on Alarcon or Crimmins, but a Jacob B. Haas had an address at Fairway Ranch. I called his number and a hearty male voice on a machine told me Jake and Marvelle were unavailable, but feel free to leave a message. I said I'd be in town on LAPD business and would appreciate it if Sheriff Haas could spare me some time.
The highway forked, the truck route sprouting to the right and draining the traffic from three lanes. Radar surveillance warnings were all around, but the eternity of open road before me was too seductive and I kept the Seville at 85, zipping past Saugus and Castaic, the western ridge of Angeles Crest National Forest, the Tejon Pass, then the Kern County border.
Shortly after eleven, I exited at Grapevine and bought some gas. My freeway map showed me how to get to Fairway Ranch, but I confirmed directions with the sleepy-looking attendant.
"That's for old people," he said. He was around nineteen, crew-cut, tan, and pimpled, with four earrings in his left lobe.
"Visiting Grandma," I said.
He looked up and down the Seville. "It's pretty nice there. Rich people, mostly. They play a lot of golf." The minitruck with the huge wheels and the Radiohead bumper sticker parked near the garbage cans was probably his. Freshly waxed. His eyes narrowed as he continued to stare at the Seville. I try to keep the car in good shape, but it's a '79 and there are limits.
"Used to be another town around here," I said.
His stare was dull.
"Treadway," I said. "Farms, ranches, peaches, and walnut groves."
"Oh, yeah?" Profound indifference. "Cool car."
I thanked him and left, taking a narrow northeastern road toward the Tehachapi Mountains. The range was gorgeous- high and sharp, peaks of varying height laid against one another masterfully, more perfectly arranged than any artist's composition could ever be. The lower hills were dun, the upper ridges the precise ash-gray of the Beatty brothers' dead faces. Some of the more distant crests had faded to a misty purple. Wintry colors even at this time of year, but the heat was more intense than in L.A., burning through the clouds as if they were tissue paper.
The road rose sharply. This was subalpine terrain. I couldn't imagine it as farmland. Then ten miles in, a sign reading FAIRWAY RANCH: A PLANNED COMMUNITY directed me down a left-hand pass that cut sharply through walls of granite. Another sign-STEEP GRADE: REDUCE SPEED-came too late; I was already hurtling down a roller-coaster chute.
A good two miles of chute. At the bottom was flat green patchwork centered by a diamond-bright aquamarine lake. The lake was amorphous-too perfectly shapeless, it shouted man-made. Two golf courses hugged the water, one on each side, fringed by lime-colored trees with feathery tops- California peppers. Red-topped houses were grouped in premeditated plots. Spanish tile on cream stucco, interspersed with trapezoids of green. The entire layout-maybe five miles wide-was outlined in white, as if drawn by a child too fearful to go outside the lines.
As I got closer I saw that the white was waist-high beam-and-post fencing. An exact duplicate of the "planned community" sign appeared a hundred yards later, over a smaller plaque that said Bunker Protection patrolled the premises.
No gates, just a flat, clean road into the development. Fifteen MPH speed limit and warnings to watch for slow-moving golf carts. I obliged and crawled past stretches of perfect rye grass. Lots more pepper trees, shaggy and undulating, sub-planted with beds of multicolored impatiens.
A thousand feet in, another dozen signs on a stout, dark tree trunk that might have been walnut offered a crash course in the layout of Fairway Ranch.
Balmoral Golf Course to the north, White Oak to the south, Reflection Lake straight ahead. The Pinnacle Recreation Center and Spa to the north, Walnut Grove Fitness Center to the south. In the center, Piccadilly Arcade.
Other arrows pointed to what I assumed were six different housing subdivisions: Chatham, Cotswold, Sussex, Essex, Yorkshire, Jersey.