The Door To December

He put the book back in the carton, closed the trunk, and got into the car just as a few fat drops of rain began to splatter the pavement. Scaldone's mailing list was still in his pocket, and he was certain that he would soon find last names for Eddie, Shelby, and Howard among those three hundred customers of the Sign of the Pentagram. The light there was poor, however, and he was tired, and his eyes felt sandy, and he still wanted to talk to Laura McCaffrey before it got too late, so he left the list in his pocket, started the engine, and drove out of the Hollywood hills.

At 10:44, when he reached Laura's house in Sherman Oaks, a cold rain was falling. Although lights were on in several rooms, no one answered the door. He rang the bell, then knocked, then pounded on the door, to no avail.

Where was Earl Benton? He was supposed to remain there until midnight, when another agent from California Paladin was scheduled to relieve him.

Dan thought of the crushed and disfigured corpses in Studio City the previous night, and he thought of the dead hit man, Ned Rink, and with growing anxiety he moved away from the door, squished across the wet lawn, pushed between two flower-laden hibiscus bushes, and peered in the nearest window. He saw nothing out of the ordinary, no bodies or blood or wreckage. He went to the next window, and still he saw nothing, so he hurried to the gate at the side of the house and went through it and along the walk to the rear, his heart racing and an ulcerous pain flaring in his gut.

The kitchen door was unlocked. As he pushed it open and stepped inside, he noted that the door frame was splintered and that a ruined security chain hung from its mounting. Then he saw the mess in the room beyond: torn and wilted flowers, shredded and wadded leaves, other greenery, clods of moist earth.

No blood.

On the table were three unfinished spaghetti dinners speckled with dirt and debris.

One overturned chair.

A tangled mass of impatiens bristled from the sink.

But no blood. Thank God. No blood. So far.

He drew his revolver.

Full of dread, with incipient grief welling in anticipation of the battered corpses that must lie somewhere in the house, he edged out of the kitchen and moved cautiously from one room to the next. He found nothing but a wary cat that dashed away from him.

Checking the garage, he saw that Laura McCaffrey's blue Honda was gone. He didn't know what to make of that. When he uncovered no bodies anywhere, his relief was as great as if he had been trudging along an ocean floor with billions of tons of water pressing on him and was now abruptly transported to dry land where only air weighed on his shoulders. The extent and depth of his relief, and the great exhilaration that accompanied it, forced him to admit to himself that his feelings for this woman and her troubled child were different from his feelings for all the other victims whom he had known in fourteen years of policework. Nor could his unusual involvement and empathy be attributed to the vague parallels between this case and that of Fran and Cindy Lakey, years ago; he was not drawn to Laura McCaffrey solely because, by saving her and Melanie, he could atone for his failure to save Cindy Lakey's life. That was part of it, certainly, but he was also attracted to this woman. The influence that she had on him was not quite like anything he'd ever known before; he was drawn to her not only because of her beauty, which was undeniably affecting, and not only because of her intelligence, which was important to him since he had never shared most men's fascination with dumb blondes and airhead brunettes, but also because of her incredible strength and determination in the face of horror and adversity.

But even if she and Melanie get out of this predicament alive, Dan thought, there's probably little hope of a relationship between her and me. She's a doctor of psychology, for God's sake. I'm a cop. She's better educated than I am. She makes more money than I do. Forget it, Haldane. You're out of your class.

Nevertheless, when he found no bodies anywhere in the house, he was immensely relieved, and his heart swelled with a particular joy that he would not have felt if the escapees from death had been any other escapees than this woman and her daughter.

When he returned to the kitchen to have a closer look at the wreckage there, Dan found that he was no longer alone in the house. Michael Seames, the FBI agent he'd met a few hours ago at the Sign of the Pentagram, was standing by the table, hands in the pockets of his raincoat, studying the floral debris that filled the room. Beneath his graying hair, above his apparently aged shoulders, a troubled and puzzled expression lay upon Seames's anachronistically young face.

'Where have they gone?' Dan asked.

'I was hoping you could tell me,' Seames said.

'At my suggestion, she hired around-the-clock bodyguards—'

'California Paladin.'

'Yeah, that's right. But as far as I know, they weren't going to recommend that she go into hiding or anything like that. They were going to stay here with her.'

'One of them was here. An Earl Benton—'

'Yes, I know him.'

'Until about an hour ago. Then, without warning, he split with Laura McCaffrey and the girl, went out of here like a bat out of hell. We have a surveillance van across the street.'

'Oh?'

'They tried to follow Benton, but he was moving too fast,' Seames frowned. 'In fact, it seemed like he was trying to give us the slip as much as anything else. You have any idea why he'd want to do that?'

'Just a wild guess. I'm probably totally off the wall to even suggest it. But maybe he doesn't trust you.'

'We're here to protect the child.'

'You sure our government wouldn't like to have her for a while, to try to figure out what McCaffrey and Hoffritz were doing with her in that gray room?'

'We might,' Seames admitted. 'That decision hasn't been made yet. But this is America, you know—'

'So I've heard.'

'—and we wouldn't kidnap her.'

'What would you call it—"borrowing" her?'

'We'd want to have her mother's permission for whatever tests we'd run.'

Dan sighed, not sure what to believe.

Seames said, 'You didn't maybe tell Benton that he should get them out from under us, did you?'

'Why would I do that? I'm a public servant, same as you.'

'Then you always work these hours, all day and half the night, on every case you handle?'

'Not every case.'

'Most cases?'

Dan could honestly say, 'Yeah, in fact, on most cases I put in long hours. You get going on an investigation, and one thing leads to another, and it isn't always possible to stop cold at five o'clock each day. Most detectives work long hours, irregular shifts. You must know that.'

'You work harder than most, I hear.'

Dan shrugged.

Seames said, 'They say you're a bulldog, that you love your work and you really sink your teeth into it, really hang on.'

'Maybe. I guess I work pretty hard. But in a homicide, the trail can get cold fast. Usually, if you don't get a lead on your killer in three or four days, you'll never hang it on anyone.'

'But you're putting more into this case than even the average homicide detective usually does, more than even you usually do. Aren't you, Lieutenant?'

'Maybe.'

'You know you are.'

'Arf, arf.'

'What?'

'The bulldog in me.'

'Why such a bulldog on this case?'

'I guess I was just in the mood for some action.'

'That's no answer.'

'I just ate too much Purina Dog Chow, have too much energy, got to work it off.'

Seames shook his head. 'It's because you've got a special stake in this one.'

'Do I?'

'Don't you?'