The Door To December

Her whimpering subsided, but she wasn't silenced altogether.

Laura wanted to go to the girl, hug her, hold her close, but for her own sake, and Melanie's, she had to stay where she was.

The room was definitely cold and getting colder.

Laura remembered how the kitchen had grown frigid just before the radio had come to life. And again just before the wind-thing had thrown open the door and surged in from the darkness….

Wexlersh said, 'Don't they have heat in this damned place?'

'There!' Manuello said, finally screwing the silencer onto the barrel of the gun.

Colder…

Holstering his own revolver now that his partner was at last ready to do the deed, grabbing Melanie by one arm and pulling her out of the way, Wexlersh edged backward toward the front door of the apartment.

Colder…

Laura was electrified, charged with tension and anticipation. Something was about to happen. Something strange. Manuello stepped closer to Earl, who regarded him with more contempt than terror.

The temperature of the room plunged precipitously now, and behind Wexlersh and Melanie the apartment door flew open with a crash—

But nothing supernatural burst into the room. It was Dan Haldane. He came through the door fast, even as he opened it. He took in the situation with remarkable alacrity and jammed his revolver into Wexlersh's back as that detective was starting to swing toward the door.

Manuello spun around, but Haldane said, 'Drop it! Drop it, you bastard, or I'll blow you away.'

Manuello hesitated, probably not because he was worried about his partner getting killed, but because it was clear that Wexlersh's body would stop the first bullet meant for Dan, and because it was equally clear that Manuello wouldn't have a chance to fire twice before Dan took his head off. He glanced at Melanie too, as though calculating the chances of leaping toward her, grabbing her. But when Dan shouted at him again—'Drop it!'—Manuello finally conceded the game and let the silencer-equipped pistol fall to the floor.

'He's got Earl's gun,' Laura warned Dan.

'And his own service revolver too,' Earl said.

Keeping a grip on Wexlersh's coat, the revolver still jammed hard in the man's back, Dan said, 'Okay, Manuello, get rid of the other two pieces, slow and easy. No funny stuff.'

One at a time, Manuello rid himself of the weapons, then backed across the room and stood against the wall, as Dan directed.

Laura came forth to gather up the three firearms while Dan relieved Wexlersh of his service revolver.

'Why the hell is it so cold in here?' Dan asked.

But even as he voiced the question, the air grew warm again as swiftly as it had turned frigid.

Something almost happened, Laura thought. Something like what happened in the kitchen at our house earlier. But she didn't think that they had been about to get just another warning. Not this time. No, this would have been worse. She had the unsettling feeling that It had been within seconds of making an appearance.

Dan was looking at her strangely, as if he knew that she had an answer for him.

But she couldn't speak. She didn't know how to put it into words that would make any sense at all to him. She knew only that, if It had come, the slaughter here would have been far worse than any that the two corrupt detectives had been planning. If It had come, would they all have wound up like the battered, torn, and mangled bodies in the house in Studio City?

29

In the emergency room at UCLA Medical Center, Earl was admitted for immediate treatment of his scalp wound and split lips.

Laura and Melanie waited in the lounge adjacent to the emergency admitting desk while Dan went to the nearest pay phone. He called the East Valley Division number and got Ross Mondale's extension.

'Working late, aren't you, Ross?'

'Haldane?'

'Didn't know you were so industrious.'

'What do you want, Haldane?'

'World peace would be nice.'

'I'm not in the mood for—'

'But I guess I'd settle for a solution to this case.'

'Listen, Haldane, I'm busy here, and I—'

'You're going to be even busier, 'cause you're going to have to spend a lot of time thinking up alibis.'

'What're you talking about?'

'Wexlersh and Manuello.'

Mondale was silent.

Dan said, 'Why'd you send them down to Westwood, Ross?'

'I guess you didn't know, but I've decided to provide police protection for the McCaffreys.'

'Even with the current manpower shortage?'

'Well, considering the Scaldone killing tonight and the extreme violence of these crimes, it seemed prudent to—'

'Stuff a sock in it, you son of a bitch.'

'What?'

'I know they were going to kill Earl and Laura—'

'What are you talking about?'

'—and snatch Melanie—'

'Have you been drinking, Haldane?'

'—and then go back later and report that Earl and Laura were already dead when they got there.'

'Am I supposed to be making sense out of this?'

'Your confusion almost sounds genuine.'

'These are serious accusations, Haldane.'

'Oh, you're so smooth, Ross.'

'These are fellow officers we're talking about here. They—'

'Who'd you sell out to, Ross?'

'Haldane, I advise you—'

'And what did you get for selling out? That's the big question. Listen, listen, hold on a sec, bear with me, let me theorize a bit, okay? You wouldn't have sold out just for money. You wouldn't put your entire career on the line just for money. Not unless it was a couple of million, and nobody would've paid that kind of dough for a job like this. Twenty-five thousand. Tops. Probably fifteen. That's more like it. Now, I can believe Wexlersh and Manuello would have done it for that kind of money, maybe even less, but neither of them would've whacked Earl and Laura without your approval, without a guarantee of your protection. So I'd say they got the money, and you got something else. Now what could that something else be, Ross? You'd sell out for power, for a really important promotion maybe, for a guarantee of the chief's post and maybe even for a mayoral nomination. So whoever bought you is somebody who controls political machinery. Am I getting warm, Ross? Did you trade Laura and Melanie McCaffrey for those kinds of promises?'

Mondale was silent.

'Did you, Ross?'

'This sounds worse than drunk, Dan. This is spacey. Are you on drugs, or what?'

'Did you, Ross?'

'Where are you, Dan?'

Dan ignored the question. He said, 'Manuello and Wexlersh are at that apartment in Westwood right now, gagged and hog-tied, one on the commode and the other in the bathtub. I'd have flushed them both down the drain if they'd have fit.'

'You are high on something, by God!'

'Give it a rest, Ross. Paladin is sending a couple of men over there to baby-sit your boys, and I've already called a reporter at the Times and another one at the Journal. Called the division over there, too, told them who I was, told them there'd been an attempted murder, so they've got uniforms on the way. It's going to be a circus.'

After another silence, Mondale said, 'Is Mrs. McCaffrey going to give a statement accusing Wexlersh and Manuello of attempted murder?'

'Beginning to worry, Ross?'

'They're my officers,' Mondale said. 'My responsibility. If they've actually done what you say, then I want to be absolutely sure they're eventually indicted and convicted, and I don't want any damned rotten apples in my barrel. I don't believe in covering up for my men out of some misguided sense of police brotherhood.'

'What's the matter, Ross? Do you think I'm recording this call? You think someone's listening in? Well, there's no one listening, no tape, so you can drop the act.'

'I don't understand your attitude, Dan.'