“That’s a white Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge, late model, over.”
“We know that much, over.”
“Then goddamned find it!”
“Eyes wide as always, Terry... and out.”
Five minutes. Frances intercepted the messenger carrying the photo from the FasTrak toll road people and ran it down to Reilly in the lab.
The press conference was only five minutes old when a young deputy manning the 800 lines got our first call of a sighting of the new Horridus. The deputy explained to me that a young man claimed to have seen The Horridus drinking a piña colada in a Huntington Beach bar just last night — 1:30 A.M.
“He was at the Gayley house in Yorba Linda,” I said. “Forget him.”
Ten minutes. Sam Welborn called from Wichita Falls to say that Wanda Grandey had three daughters, according to some old-time Hopkinites who knew. None had any idea what their first or married last names were. Collette Loach didn’t ring bells. Still working.
Fifteen minutes. One of our Newport units found a witness who saw the van eastbound on Jamboree about the time the father called in. It tracked with my hunch that he’d move inland, away from the coast.
The piña colada deputy said he had another caller on the 800 line: she had seen this revised Horridus exactly one week ago in a supermarket in Irvine.
“He hadn’t revised himself by then,” I said. “He still had the white hair. Forget her.”
Eighteen minutes. Chopper Three called in with a late-model Plymouth van moving south on Pacific Coast Highway at MacArthur, just entering Corona del Mar. Two Sheriff units were less than half a mile away, and three Newport Beach police units were already in pursuit. I slapped on the radio headset and identified myself.
“We’re right over him now,” said the Chopper Three sergeant, “not going to let him out of my sight. I can see NBPD coming up behind him now... lights on... doesn’t see them... there — he’s pulling over. We’re on him, Terry... over.”
“Stay up. Over.”
“Couldn’t bring me down with a missile. Will advise, over.”
Another young deputy working the 800 number said he had a caller on the line who claimed to be The Horridus.
“Ask him where he is,” I ordered. The deputy did.
“He laughed and hung up.”
“Talk to Frances or Louis first when you get a call,” I said. “I don’t want these assholes wasting my time.”
“Yes, sir.”
Piña colada appeared beside his young partner. “Sir, caller on the line says The Horridus lives in the apartment next door to her. Very old woman, sir, says he drives a black pickup truck and delivers papers—”
“—Well, he doesn’t. Talk to your buddy here about screening these through CAY — got it?”
They turned and marched back to their phone bank.
My heart was thumping hard as I put down the headset and turned to the sound of someone coming through the door in a hurry.
Some things get your attention when you see them out of context, like your dog curled on the forbidden couch, like a movie star in the airline row across from you. They catch your eye and you know that something is different.
And that’s what I was thinking when Joe Reilly came through the Room Horrible with his hair askew and a strange smile and an evidence bag held up before him. Joe Reilly, scientist, rarely seen out of his native lab habitat. Whatever he had, it wasn’t an enhanced photo of a toll road violator.
“Something in here you should see,” he said. “It fell out of one of the shoes we were getting ready to laser for prints. One of the shoes from Chloe Gayley’s closet.”
Joe handed me the plastic bag and I set it on the desk. I flattened it with my fingers to deflect the glare of the overhead lights and stared down at the small shiny object.
It was a bracelet with a simple stainless-steel chain and an oval plate in the middle. The lobster-claw clasp was twisted open, unlockable now, ruined. On the front of the plate was an engraved serpent wrapped around a leafless branch. The words MEDIC ALERT were engraved down each side of the snake.
I flipped it over.
“It could have come off in the struggle,” he said. “Either that, or it’s the girl’s, or maybe her mo—”
I handed the bag back to Reilly and dialed the number on the badge. When the receptionist came on I gave it my best:
“Dr. Terry Naughton out at UCI Med Center in Orange, California. We’ve got an ER admission here with your bracelet on, sulfa drug allergy, a-ok on that. Thought we’d get anything else and an ID — no wallet, no nothing on him, looks like a drug OD. We might lose this one.”
“Number please?”
I told her.
“Just a moment, please.”
Thirty-seven seconds: I timed it on my watch.
“Dr. Naughton, that’s strange, because the bearer would be Mary Lou Kidder, last address is Wichita Falls, Texas. Now, I can—”
I hung up and stood. I was ready to crush something, anything. If one of the 800 deputies had approached to tell me about another bogus Horridus sighting, it might have been his last day of walking upright.
“It belonged to a girl back in Texas,” I told Joe. “The one he fed to his goddamned snake.”
Joe’s countenance fell, and he nodded.
Dispatch told us the Newport Beach police had already let the white Plymouth van go — family of five on their way to dinner.
Frances edged past him and took my sleeve. “Terry, sorry. Look — one of the guys has a girl on the 800 line who says she tried to deliver a prescription ointment to The Horridus. I know it sounds kind of funny, but she’s watching the press conference and she’s positive it was him. I don’t know, she sounds honest and credible.”
“When?”
“Yesterday morning. He came out and yelled at her. That gave her a damn good look at somebody, boss.”
I thought of Strickley’s speculation about a skin condition that would make him unsure of himself. Something you might need prescription ointment for.
Well, now.
“Give me the phone.”
“You’ll have to walk to it, Terry — some of them still have cords. Her name is Tamara and she’s seventeen. We’ve got her stats already.”
I picked the phone off the table and identified myself, told her not to hang up, then asked her to tell me what she saw.
“I’m like the new delivery person for Sloan’s Pharmacy in Santa Ana. And I went to take the delivery to our customer? And he came to the door and yelled at me because we’re just supposed to put it in the mailbox. But I didn’t know that? But he was the guy on TV tonight. It’s a rilly good drawing. Earring. Everything.”
“Do you remember his name, or the name of the street?”
“I’m really sorry but I can’t remember either one, because I’m new like I said and I don’t know the route yet? I mean, I can call the owner, Mr. Sloan, and he could probably tell me, but I thought I’d call you first. But I think he goes to bed pretty early. Either that or we open at nine in the morning.”
“The house was in Santa Ana?”
“No. We deliver in Tustin, too.”
“Tustin.”
“Yeah.”
I felt the little chill traverse my scalp.
“Old town?”
“What’s that?”
“Over by the high school.”
“I’m not sure where that is. I’m new to California.”
“Wall around the house, trees?”
“Definitely a wall. I don’t remember any trees, though.”