Unmistakably, it was a call to him. Malcolm closed his eyes. He sniffed the air. Small, invisible changes happened inside his body. And the night was not so cold anymore.
When he opened his eyes, their green color had deepened. He started confidently up into the hills.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
Gavin Ramsay sat staring at the little digital clock on his desk in the La Reina County Sheriff's office. He caught himself counting the seconds as they ticked off, and angrily turned the face of the clock away from him.
All right, so Holly Lang had not called last night. That didn't mean anything. There were a hundred reasons she might not have telephoned him. Yeah, he told himself grimly, and about fifty of them were bad news.
The new, slimmed-down version of Deputy Roy Nevins came into the office. His leather gleamed; his uniform was freshly pressed. He was shaved, trimmed, and looked maybe ten years younger than he had a year ago. Gavin marveled at the varying effect exposure to violence had on different people.
"Any action, Roy?" he asked.
"Not to speak of. Somebody used the deer-crossing sign for target practice again. I collared a speeder from L.A. trying out his new Porsche. Had to break up a couple of guys who had pulled off the road to do some smooching."
"Couple of guys?"
"I should have mentioned that they were from San Francisco."
"Oh. Well."
Nevins sat down to type out his report in two-finger machine-gun style. Ramsay sighed and turned the clock back around to face him. The hell with this. He was worried, and there was no use pretending he wasn't. He picked up the phone and direct-dialed the number of the Silverdale Motel.
The female voice that answered had a pleasant, foreign-sounding lilt.
"Is there a Dr. Hollanda Lang registered there?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. She in room twelve. I ring for you."
He listened while the line buzzed five times in his ear.
"Sorry, sir, she not answer."
"This is Sheriff Gavin Ramsay of La Reina County. I'd like you to take a look in Dr. Lang's room to see if she's all right."
"Is something wrong with lady?" The woman's voice rose several tones.
"There's no reason to think so," he said soothingly, "but I'd appreciate it if you would take a look."
Yes, yes, I look. You want I call you back?"
"I'll hold on," Ramsay said.
There was a clunk as the receiver was set down on the other end. Ramsay counted seconds on the clock for five minutes. Roy Nevins had stopped hammering the typewriter and was watching him.
"Hello, Sheriff?" The sudden return of the voice in his ear startled him for a moment.
"Yes."
"I look in room. Nobody there. Lady's clothes put away all neat. Car outside. Maybe she walk down the road for breakfast."
"Yeah, maybe," Ramsay said. "Thank you."
"Trouble?" Roy Nevins said when he had hung up.
"I don't know. Holly was going to call me from Silverdale. She didn't. Now she's not in her room. It's probably nothing."
"Sure." Nevins went back to his report, but he continued to glance over toward Ramsay.
Gavin made a try at studying his calendar for the coming week. Talk to the Darnay Boys' Club, lunch with local Kiwanis, oversee motorcycle hill climb east of Pinyon, entertain police science class from La Reina College. It was no use; he could not concentrate.
He picked up the phone again and called Inyo County. The sheriff there was a man named Fielding whom Ramsay had met once or twice. A stolid lawman with good instincts but little imagination.
Ramsay identified himself to the switchboard and was put through to the sheriff, who sounded harried.
"Good to hear from you, Ramsay. What can I do for you?"
"A woman from Darnay, a Dr. Hollanda Lang, checked into the Silverdale Motel yesterday. She's still registered there, but the woman in the office couldn't find her. I'm a little worried."
"Any reason to think something might have happened to her?"
"Nothing concrete, except the business she was doing there."
"What business?"
"It had to do with the carnival."
Fielding exhaled a blast of air into the mouthpiece. "I don't know anything about your doctor, but I've got plenty of troubles of my own with that carnival."
"Oh?" Ramsay leaned forward.
"Couple of men died there last night under suspicious circumstances."
"Two men?" Ramsay said. "What happened?"
He could hear other voices talking excitedly in the background at Inyo County.
"I've got to go now, Ramsay," said Sheriff Fielding. "Give me a call back this evening and maybe I'll have something for you."
The phone went dead in Ramsay's hand. He hung up the instrument, then dug into the bottom desk drawer for the silver bullets that had rested there since he had last used them at Pastory's Bear Paw clinic.
He said. "Think you can manage things here for a day or so, Roy?"
"No problem," said Nevins. "Is Holly in some kind of trouble?"
"I hope not," Ramsay said, "but I think I'll take a run over to Silverdale to check on her. If you need me, call Sheriff Fielding, Inyo County."
"Will do," Nevins said.
As he drove through the Inyo Pass and started the descent through the hills to Silverdale, Ramsay began to wonder what he would say to Holly if he found her safe and sound in the Silverdale Motel. How would he explain galloping over here like John Wayne on the chance she might be in trouble?
Hell with that. There was trouble here. Two men were dead on the grounds of the Samson Supershow, and Ramsay would be damned surprised if Holly and the boy Malcolm were not somehow involved.
He had to pass the carnival grounds on his way to the motel, so Ramsay pulled off there first. He identified himself to the Inyo County deputy who was posted at the entrance. In the tent that displayed pictures of 'Grolo the Animal Boy' he found Sheriff Fielding and an agitated little man named Moskowitz, who seemed to be the owner of the carnival.
Fielding gave him a rundown of the previous night's fatalities. "One of the dead men was Bateman Styles. He ran this Animal Boy thing. Cause of death seems to be a heart attack, but there were suspicious bruises. The other one was definitely not a natural death. Had his throat ripped out."
"Got a suspect?"
"A pretty good one," Fielding said. "It seems this so-called Animal Boy hasn't been seen since the killings. Nobody knows where he went. Not that they're telling, anyway."
"You're on the wrong track there, Sheriff," piped Moskowitz.
The lawmen looked down, surprised. They had forgotten for a moment that the little man was there.
"What makes you think so, Mr. Moskowitz?" said Fielding.
"The kid did a kind of wildman act, but that's all it was - an act. When he wasn't working he was just a shy, sweet-natured kid. No way he could kill anybody. Besides, he thought Bateman Styles was Jesus Christ."
Ramsay had a sudden thought. "What was the name of the second victim?"
Fielding consulted a notebook. "The name in his wallet was Wayne Pastory. A doctor, apparently."
The muscles tensed in Ramsay's upper back. "I know that one," he said. Briefly, he filled the Inyo sheriff in on Pastory's background in Pinyon.
"Could you take a look at the body and give us a positive ID?" Fielding said.
"Sure. But there's something I have to do first."
"Check on your Dr. Lang?"
"I'll get back to you."
Holly Lang's little Volkswagen Rabbit looked so natural and peaceful parked outside unit twelve that for a moment Ramsay felt his fears might be foolish after all. However, the apprehension returned as he knocked and waited for a response.
A woman with glossy black hair and mischievous eyes opened the door. She wore a motel bath towel wrapped around a sensual olive-skinned body.