Jonathan Kellerman_Petra Connor 02 (34 page)

CHAPTER

50

THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 10:59 P.M., THE GOMEZ RESIDENCE, UNION DISTRICT

F
rom the upper bunk came the sound of Isaiah's snoring, loud and intrusive as a leaf blower. The eldest Gomez brother had come home late and exhausted, in a foul mood that silenced the rest of the family. Flinging his work clothes on the floor, he'd lurched straight to bed.

Tar reek bittered the room. Along with alcohol. Isaac would keep that to himself, no reason to upset Mama.

On the other side of the cell-like space, Joel slept on his air mattress, eyes closed, chest rising and falling slowly, a smile on his almost-pretty face. A maddeningly cheerful bundle of libido and superficiality, Joel would always be happy.

Isaac, sapped from his motel time with Klara, had eaten lightly and fallen asleep quickly. His dream cycle was frantic and ambiguous. In the midst of an abstract expressionist nightmare, he woke drenched with sweat and disoriented. The din from the top bunk told him where he was. God bless Isaiah's deviated septum.

Now he was wide awake, trying not to think about Klara but, of course, thinking of nothing else.

Not the things she'd done. Something she'd said.

There would have to be parallels . . . otherwise why imitate Retzak.

An eccentric woman, probably neurotic woman, but smart. Too smart to be ignored and now Isaac was sweating for another reason.

A big fat balloon of denial punctured.

It's out of your hands. Petra knows what she's doing.

Reaching out for the wooden crate that served as his nightstand, he got hold of his watch: 11:02.

Less than an hour to showdown. Soon it would be over.

Would it?

He closed his eyes and the facts loomed larger. Discrepancies impossible to ignore. Sliding out of the bunk, he found his briefcase, tiptoed across the closet-sized space.

Isaiah moved and bedsprings squeaked. A mumbled: “Whu?”

Isaac left the bedroom, closing the door silently, and went into the kitchen, hoping his parents in the neighboring room wouldn't hear him. His mother, in particular, had the sleep rhythms of a Chihuahua.

Switching on the dim light under the stove, he sat and thought. Decided he wasn't being psychotic.

Pulling his laptop out of the case and plugging it in—shifting the rag-wrapped gun in the process—he rummaged some more and finally came up with his seldom-used modem. Connecting the box to the corner phone jack behind the table, he booted up and hoped for the best. He'd set up the modem years ago but rarely used it. No reason to, given high-speed access on campus. The apartment's phone wires were eroded and chancy. Even if he got a line, making it to the Internet would be an infuriatingly slow ordeal.

Neanderthal dial-up. What a joke.

Spoiled boy.

Scared boy.

The modem squawked. Stopped. Made more noise.

His mother padded in, rubbing her eyes. “What're you doing?”

“Studying.”

“At this hour?”

“I thought of something.”

“What?”

“My research, it's not important, Ma.”

“If it's not important, you should go back to sleep.” She blinked, couldn't focus. “Go back to sleep. You don't sleep enough.”

“In a few minutes, Ma. It's my doctoral research.”

“It can't wait until tomorrow?”

“No, Ma. Go back to sleep.”

The modem buzzed and hummed and beeped, kept chirping its little modem song. Interminable!

“What's that?” said his mother.

“The thing that connects to the Internet.”

“Why's it plugged in there?”

“I'm using our phone line.”

“What if someone calls?”

“No one's going to call, Mama.”

She looked at the stove. “I'll fix you something to eat.”

“No.” He raised his voice and she gave a start. He got up and placed an arm around her shoulder. “No, thank you, Ma. Really, I'm fine.”

“I . . .” She looked around the kitchen.

He guided her back to her room. Wasn't sure she'd really been awake.

When he returned to the kitchen table, the connection had been completed and he logged on to his university server. Scanning his bookmarks, he found the chat room text he'd saved, began retracing cyber-steps.

Five minutes later, his heart was pounding so hard, it felt as if it would rip through his rib cage.

Online Host: *****You are in BloodnGutsChat*****

CrimeGirl: The way i see it OttoR was = to Manson or anyone.

BulldogD: U shouldn't glarify him he was just anther semi organize serial

CrimeGirl: It's not glorifying (spell-boy!!) It's telling it like it is.

BulldogD: I can spell I just don't bothe

CrimeGirl: Yeah right. I still think OR was interesting maybe unique for his time.

P-Kasso: You're both missing the point.

Mephisto: Hey look! There's always some guy with a point.

CrimeGirl: I for one want to hear an intellegient point. Speak, P.

P-Kasso: Retzak stands above the others because of his artistic integrity. His motivation is far more elevated than manson, bundy, JTR, anyone of that ilk. For him it was all about art, he captured the scene, I'd put him more like Van Gogh

Mephisto: Did he cut off his ear haha

CrimeGirl: Funny. Not.

BulldogD: Pee-Kasso. What U're one of those artsty fartsies, too that's why U see it that way???

Mephisto: No asnwer?

P-Kasso: I've been known to wield a brush.

BulldogD: How about a stout cudgel?

Mephisto: No answer now?

CrimeGirl: Guess he left.

Mephisto: Chickenshit.

CrimeGirl: There's no need for that kind of la

P-Kasso: I'm still here. But now I'm leaving. You people are brainless.

Mephisto: Arrogant asshole.

CrimeGirl: Im still waiting for intelligence in a y chromosomer.

BulldogD: What about John Gacey? Buddies with Jimmy Carter And all the time he's burying bodies

Mephisto: It was Rosmarie Carter

CrimeGirl: Rosalyn, fact-boy

P-Kasso: a self-styled artist. Retzak's biggest fan.

Isaac rescrolled the chat, read it again. Felt his fingers go cold. Logging off, he unplugged the modem, hurried to the wall phone, punched in Petra's cell.

It connected to her land line. Her machine; he talked to it, trying not to sound weak or scared or frantic, guessing that he'd failed.

Would she call home for messages? Why would she? Busy on stakeout.

Thinking she knew.

The clock on the stove said: 11:11.

P-Kasso.

Rushing back to his room, he looked for his shoes, couldn't find them, felt around under the bunk, finally got hold of the right loafer, then its mate. He'd gone to sleep in a T-shirt and sweatpants, no socks. That would have to do. Shoes in hand, he ran toward the door.

Isaiah sat up. “What the . . .”

“Sweet dreams, bro.”

“Where . . . goin'?”

“Out.”

Down on the floor Joel rolled to the wall. Rolled back. Smiled.

Isaiah said, “Goin' out for more pussy?”

Isaac closed the door on both of them.

Isaiah owned a pickup truck that needed an engine. The sole operating Gomez vehicle was the intermittently operant Toyota Corolla Papa chanced driving to work. Papa's keys dangled from a plastic frog screwed to the wall next to the fridge.

The car was just back from the shop, new filters of some sort. Isaac slipped the ignition key off his father's ring, began sneaking across the kitchen, feeling like a burglar, before he stopped.

Minor omission.

He corrected that. Left.

CHAPTER

51

THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 11:03 P.M., THE DOEBBLER RESIDENCE, ROSITA AVENUE, TARZANA

Y
ou're sure?” said Petra.

Eric had just returned from another look behind the house. This time she'd seen him emerge, the faintest black smudge against the indigo Valley night. He'd probably showed himself on purpose, to make her feel good.

“No more magazine, he was watching TV. I couldn't get an angle to see the screen. At eleven sharp, he got up, turned off the light, went upstairs.”

Less than an hour to go. Both of Doebbler's cars were in place.

“You're sure there's no way he can leave from behind?”

“Steep hillside up to the neighbor's property, then wrought-iron fencing. Anything's possible but—”

“If it's
possible
we need to
worry
about it.” Little Miss Shrew. Before she could apologize, Eric said, “Want me to go back there and stay?”

“That would mean no two-way view of the street, but maybe . . .”

“Just tell me.”

“What do you think?”

“Tough call,” he said.

“This doesn't feel right, Eric. Even if the kill-spot's some close-by clinic, he's cutting it too close. He's compulsive. Would take his time setting it up.”

“Maybe he's preparing right now. In his head.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Okay, look, go back there. If nothing happens within ten . . . fifteen minutes, I'm marching up to the front and ringing the bell.”

No response.

“You think it's a bad idea?”

“No,” he said. “I'm on my way right now.”

CHAPTER

52

THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 11:23 P.M., VERMONT AVENUE, ONE BLOCK SOUTH OF PICO

T
he Toyota stalled again.

Third time in a mile. Isaac shifted into neutral, coasted into the right lane as cars sped around him. Depressing the clutch, then releasing as he gassed, he tried to revive the ignition. A sputter, a nanosecond of panic, and the puny engine was chugging again. Pausing on the brink of death . . . resuscitating.

Barely.

Freakin' piece of junk. So much for Montalvo, his father's friend, the alleged mechanic.

Or maybe it was his own fault—poor stick-shift skills. It had been a long time since he'd gotten behind the wheel.

He snail-crawled north on Vermont, struggling to keep the gas flow even, anticipating lights and working at minimizing unnecessary stops and starts.

Half-moon night, pebbled lunar light filtering through neon and smog and humidity. No shortage of activity on Vermont at this hour. Rainbows of neon in Spanish, then Korean, then Spanish again. The car wheezed steadily past darkened buildings that alternated with the flash and buzz of bars and liquor stores and clubs.

Asian kids milling around the better-looking clubs. Nice clothing, souped up wheels that worked. The confident smiles of affluent youth.

Then back to the working-class Mexican and Salvadoran joints.

Vamos a bailar . . .

English was his language, his passport to some suburban Xanadu, but sometimes he dreamed in Spanish. Mostly, he didn't dream.

Music poured out of a raunchy-looking dance-place as he putt-putted by.

The gaiety didn't seem right for killing time.

Neither did the weather; warm night, a pleasant breeze.

Maybe this
wasn't
killing time.

Had to be. No, it didn't. Look how
wrong
he'd been.

P-Kasso.

Even if something was going to happen tonight, he'd almost certainly embarked on a fool's mission.

Heading for a destination based on theory and the cold, flat religion that was logic.

The single best deduction, given the facts. But what did facts mean?

Chances were he was wrong, yet again. Dreadfully, tragically wrong.

At Third Street, the Toyota sputtered and threatened to die once more. Holding his breath he pressed down gently on the accelerator and the damn thing relented.

He made it to Fourth, Beverly . . .

Idiotic and quixotic, but what else could he do? Petra's cell was still transferred—some police thing, for sure, what the cops called a tactical line. And contacting anyone else at the department was out of the question. Would bring the cops looking for
him.

Four-fifteen mental case, male Hispanic, heading north on Vermont in a moribund clunker.

He passed Melrose. Just another couple of miles . . .

And then what?

He'd park at a safe distance, proceed on foot. Check out the layout and find some kind of vantage point.

Playing detective.

The object of his guess: Western Pediatrics Hospital. The one place you could count on a slew of nurses who took care of children.

He'd rotated through Western Peds as a pre-med sophomore. Introduced by a bio professor who wanted aspiring physicians to see what health care was really like.

Isaac had found the hospital a wonderful, terrifying place, brimming with compassion, frantic activity, the saddest stories of all.

The big-eyed stares of very sick kids. Bald heads, waxy skin, stick-limbs tethered to I.V. lines.

He'd decided, then and there, that pediatrics wasn't for him.

Now he was headed back there on a return trip so terribly asinine it made him tremble.

The car made a retching noise. Isaac's body lurched backward as the vehicle accelerated spontaneously. He maintained shaky control, rolled through an intersection just south of Santa Monica. Violated a boulevard stop and narrowly avoided being pulverized by a house-sized supermarket truck.

The trucker's klaxon rage filled his ears as he kept going.

Two seconds later, the Toyota gave up.

On foot.

Jogging the half-mile to Sunset, staying in the darkness, close to buildings so as not to attract attention.

Male mental case running north . . .

He reached his destination by eleven forty-three, slowed his pace, and stayed on the south side of the boulevard as he ambled toward the big, blocky buildings of the hospital complex.

Most of the structures were dark. The Western Peds logo—a pair of blue-and-white clasped hands—glowed from the top of the main building.

He remained in the shadows as women, mostly young women, in white and pale pink and pastel blue and canary yellow uniforms, streamed out of several doors and crossed Sunset.

Only twenty or so nurses, stragglers at the end of the day shift. If through some miracle he was right, the bastard would be watching.

But from
where
?

Isaac watched the nurses arrive at a sign that said “Staff Parking.” Arrows pointed both ways and the group split into two. Most of the women headed west, a few east.

Two lots. Which way?

He thought it out. If Doebbler were here, he'd want things as quiet as possible.

East.

He followed five distant, female shapes down a surprisingly dim street. Shabby apartment buildings, not unlike his own, lined the journey. Half a block north sat a two-level parking structure.

Dark. The nurses walked right past the cement tiers and as Isaac got close to the structure, he saw the chained entrance. The sign hanging from the mesh gate.

“Earthquake Retrofitting, Due for Completion, August 2003.”

The nurses kept going. Twenty more feet, thirty, fifty. Nearly to the end of the block. Another sign, too distant to read, but Isaac made out cars in dirt.

He sped up.

“Temporary Staff Parking.”

High-intensity lights bleached the rear right-hand corner of the outdoor lot. The left fixture was out and half the space was a belt of black.

Poor maintenance or a predator's move?

The slim chance of the latter gave Isaac hope he'd guessed right.

Stupid hope. The city was filled with scores of other health facilities, many of which treated children. How many treated lung diseases? He had no idea.

This was worse than angels-on-a-pinhead academic theorizing. This was wild guesswork primed for the worst kind of error.

He crossed the street and slipped between two apartment buildings, feeling the softness of weeds beneath his feet. Smelling the stink of dog shit.

Home sweet home.

He stepped back another foot, made sure he had a long but clear view of the dirt lot. For all he knew, Doebbler was watching from a nearby spot, could hear his raspy breathing.

He silenced himself. Watched the five nurses head for their cars, some highlighted by the functioning light fixture, others slipping into invisibility.

The dark side would have to be it. If . . .

11:54.

Ififififififififif.