The Door To December Part 11

'Oh, yes, ma'am.'

'Good.'

'I'll be with you till midnight,' Earl said, 'and then a new man'll come on duty.'

'Fine.'

A moment later, Laura brought Melanie into the hall, and Earl hunkered down to her level. 'What a pretty girl you are.'

Melanie said nothing.

'Fact is,' he said, 'you remind me a lot of my sister, Emma.' Melanie stared through him.

Taking the girl's slack hand, engulfing it in his two enormous hands, Earl continued to speak directly to her, as though she were holding up her end of the conversation. 'Emma, she's nine years younger than me, in her junior year of high school. She's raised up two prize calves, Emma has. She's got a collection of prize ribbons, probably twenty of them, from all sorts of compet.i.tions, including livestock shows at three different county fairs. You know anything about calves? You like animals? Well, calves are just the cutest things. Real gentle faces. I'll bet you'd be good with them, just like Emma.'

Watching him with Melanie, Laura liked Earl Benton even more than she had on first meeting him.

He said, 'Now, Melanie, don't you worry about anything, okay? I'm your friend, and as long as old Earl's your friend, n.o.body's going to so much as look crosswise at you.'

The girl seemed utterly unaware of his presence.

He released her hand, and her thin arm dropped back to her side, limp.

Earl stood and rolled his shoulders to settle his jacket in place, and he looked at Laura. 'You say her daddy was responsible for making her like this?'

'He's one of the people responsible,' Laura said.

'And he's ... dead?'

'Yes.'

Some of the others are still alive, though?'

'Yes.'

'Sure would like to meet one of them. Like to talk to one of them. Just me and him alone for a while. Sure would like that,' Earl said. There was a hard edge in his voice, a chilling light in his eyes that hadn't been there before: an anger that, for the first time, made him look dangerous.

Laura liked that too.

'Now, ma'am - Doctor McCaffrey, I guess I should call you - when we leave here, I'll go out the door first. I know that's not gentlemanly behavior, but from now on, most times, I'll be just a couple feet ahead of you wherever we go, sort of scouting the way ahead, you might say.'

'I'm sure no one's going to start shooting at us in broad daylight or anything like that,' Laura said.

'Maybe not. But I still go first.'

'All right.'

'When I tell you to do something, you right away do it, and no questions asked. Understand?'

She nodded.

He said, 'I might not yell at you. I might tell you to get down or to run like h.e.l.l, and I might say it in a soft voice the same way I might say what a nice day it is, so you have to be alert.'

'I understand.'

'Good. I'm sure everything'll work out just fine. Now, are you two ladies ready to go home?'

They headed toward the elevator that would take them down to the lobby.

At least a thousand times over the past six years, Laura had dreamed about the wonderful day when she would bring Melanie home. She had imagined that it would be the happiest day of her life. She'd never thought it would be like this.

13.

At Central, Dan Haldane took two folders from the clerk in Records and carried them to one of the small writing tables along the wall.

The name on the first file was Ernest Andrew Cooper. By his fingerprints, he had been identified as the John Doe victim found the previous night with Dylan McCaffrey and Wilhelm Hoffritz in the Studio City house.

Cooper was thirty-seven years old, stood five-eleven, and weighed one hundred and sixty pounds. There were mug shots, related to a particularly serious DUI arrest, but they were of no use to Dan, because the victim's face had been battered into featureless, b.l.o.o.d.y pulp. He would have to rely on the fingerprint match.

Cooper lived in Hanc.o.c.k Park, on a street of million-dollar and multimillion-dollar homes. He was chairman of the board and majority stockholder of Cooper Softech, a successful computer software firm. He'd been arrested three times within the city limits of Los Angeles, always for drunken driving, and on all three occasions, he had also been driving without a license. He had protested the arrests, had gone to trial in each case, had been convicted of each offense, had been fined, but had served no jail time. In every case, the arresting officers noted that Cooper insisted it was immoral - and a violation of his const.i.tutional rights - for the government to require a man to carry any form of identification whatsoever, even a driver's license. The second patrolman had also written: '...Mr. Cooper informed this officer that he (Mr. Cooper) was a member of an organization, Freedom Now, that would bring all governments to their knees, and that said organization would use his arrest as a test case to challenge certain laws, and that this officer was an unwitting tool of totalitarian forces. He then threw up and pa.s.sed out.'

Smiling at that last line, Dan closed the folder. He looked at the name on the second file - Edward Philip Rink - and he was anxious to see what they had on this one.

First he carried both files to the nearest of three VDTs and sat down in front of the computer terminal. He switched it on, typed in his access code, and asked for a profile of Freedom Now.

After a brief pause, information began to appear on the screen:

Freedom Now

A political action committee registered with the Federal Elections Commission and the IRS.

Please note:

Freedom Now is a legitimate organization of private citizens exercising their const.i.tutional rights. This organization is not the subject of any police intelligence division investigation, nor should it be the subject of any such investigation while it is engaged upon the activities for which it was formed and for which it has been cleared by the Federal Elections Commission. All information in this file was acc.u.mulated from public records. This file was created for the sole purpose of identifying legitimate political organizations and distinguis.h.i.+ng them from subversive groups. The existence of this file in no way suggests special police interest in Freedom Now.

The LAPD had taken considerable heat from the American Civil Liberties Union and others for its secret surveillance of political groups that were suspected of involvement in dangerous subversive activities. The department was still fully empowered to conduct investigations of terrorist organizations, but it was enjoined from infiltrating properly registered political groups unless it obtained evidence sufficient to convince a judge that the organization in question had ties to other groups of individuals that were intent upon terrorist activities.

The disclaimer at the head of the file was familiar, and Dan didn't bother to read it. He pressed the cursor key to roll up more data.

Freedom Now - current officers President: Ernest Andrew Cooper, Hanc.o.c.k Park Treasurer: Wilhelm Stephan Hoffritz, Westwood Secretary: Mary Katherine O'Hara, Burbank

Freedom Now was chartered in 1990 for the purpose of supporting those libertarian-oriented candidates with a publicly expressed intention of working for the eventual abolition of all but minimalist government and for the eventual dissolution of all political parties.

Cooper and Hoffritz, president and treasurer, were both dead. And Freedom Now had been chartered the same year as Dylan McCaffrey had vanished with his young daughter, which might or might not be a coincidence.

Interesting, anyway.

Dan needed twenty minutes to read the computer file and make notes. Then he switched off the VDT and picked up the paper file on Ned Rink.

The doc.u.ments were numerous, but he didn't find them boring. Rink, the man found dead in the Volvo that same morning, was thirty-nine. He had graduated from Los Angeles Police Academy when he was twenty-one, had served four years with the force while taking criminal-law courses at USC in the evenings. He'd twice been the subject of LAPD internal investigations subsequent to charges of brutality, but for lack of evidence, no action had been taken as a result of the accusations against him. He had applied to the FBI, had been accepted, after being granted a variance on minimum height requirements to comply with antidiscrimination laws, and had worked for the Bureau for five years. Nine years ago, he had been discharged from the FBI for reasons unknown, though there were indications that he had exceeded his authority and, on more than one occasion, had shown too much zeal during the interrogation of a suspect.

Dan thought he knew the type. Some men chose policework because they wanted to perform a socially useful function, some because their childhood heroes had been policemen, some because their fathers had been cops, some because the job was reasonably secure and offered a good pension. There were a hundred reasons. For men like Rink, the attraction was power; they found a special thrill in issuing orders, exercising authority, not because they took pleasure in leading well, but because they enjoyed telling other people what to do and being treated with deference.

According to the file, eight years ago, following his dismissal from the FBI, Rink had been arrested for a.s.sault with intent to kill. The charge had been reduced to simple a.s.sault to ensure a conviction, which had been obtained, and Rink had served ten months with time off for good behavior. Six years ago he was arrested again, for suspicion of murder. The evidence didn't hold up, and charges were eventually dropped. After that, Rink was a lot more careful. Local, state, and federal authorities believed he was a freelance killer, serving the underworld and anyone else who would pay for his services, and there was circ.u.mstantial evidence linking him to nine murders in the past five years - which was probably just the tip of the iceberg - but no police agency had acquired enough evidence to bring Rink to justice.

Justice had been dealt to him anyway.

By something other than a police agency or a court.

Haldane closed the folder, put it on top of the Cooper file, and withdrew his current batch of lists from his pocket. He spent a few minutes looking through them, and something did pop up this time. A name: Mary O'Hara. One of the officers of Freedom Now. Her name and number had been on the notepad beside the phone in Dylan McCaffrey's office.

He put the lists away and sat for a while, thinking. G.o.d, what a mess. Two doctors of psychology, both formerly at UCLA - dead. One millionaire businessman and political activist - dead. One ex-cop, ex-FBI agent, and suspected hit man - dead. A weird gray room hidden in an ordinary suburban house where one little girl had been, among other things, tortured with electric shocks. By her own father. The Great G.o.d of Sleazy Journalism was generous to his people: The press was going to love this one.

Dan returned the two files to the Records clerk and rode the elevator up to the Scientific Investigation Division.

14.

As soon as they got in the house, Earl Benton went through every room to be sure that the windows and doors were locked. He closed the drapes and blinds and advised Laura and Melanie to stay away from the windows.

After choosing a few magazines from the stack of publications in the bra.s.s magazine tray in Laura's study, Earl moved a chair close to one of the front windows in the living room, from which he could see the walk and street beyond. 'Might look like I'm just lazing away, but don't worry. Nothing in these magazines will distract me.'

'I'm not worried.'

'Most of this job is just sitting and waiting. A guy would go nuts if he didn't have a magazine or a newspaper.'

'I understand,' she a.s.sured him.

Pepper, the calico, was more interested in Earl than in Melanie. She circled him warily for some time, studying him, sniffing at his feet. Finally she clambered onto him and demanded to be petted.

'Nice kitty,' he said, scratching Pepper behind the ears.

She settled on his lap with a blissful look of contentment.

'She doesn't take to many people that fast,' Laura told him.

Earl grinned. 'Always have had a way with animals.'

It was silly, but Pepper's acceptance of Earl Benton rea.s.sured Laura and made her feel even better about him. She trusted him completely now.

And what does that mean? she asked herself. Didn't I trust him completely already? Subconsciously, did I have doubts about him?

He had been hired to protect her and Melanie, and that's what he would do. She had no reason to suspect that he was connected with either the people who wanted Melanie dead - or the ones who seemed to want her alive and back in another gray room.

Yet that was exactly what Laura had suspected, just a little, deep down, on a purely subconscious level.

She would have to guard against paranoia. She didn't know who her enemies were: They remained faceless. There was a tendency, therefore, to suspect everyone, to spin grandiose conspiracy theories that could wind up encompa.s.sing everyone in the world but she herself and Melanie.

After brewing coffee for Earl and for herself, she made hot chocolate for Melanie and carried it into the den, where the girl waited. Laura had made arrangements to take an indefinite leave of absence from St. Mark's and to have her private patients covered by an a.s.sociate for at least the upcoming week. She intended to begin therapy with Melanie right away, this afternoon, but she didn't want to conduct the session in the same room with Earl, for he would be a distraction.

The study was small but comfortable. Two walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that were filled with an eclectic collection of hardcover t.i.tles ranging from exotic volumes on highly specialized areas of psychology to popular fiction. The other walls were covered with beige gra.s.scloth. There were two Delacroix prints, a dark pine desk with an upholstered chair, a rocking chair, and an emerald-green sofa with lots of pillows. Soft amber light came from a pair of bra.s.s Stiffel lamps on matching end tables; Earl had closed the emerald-green drapes at both windows.

Melanie was sitting on the sofa, her upturned hands in her lap, staring at her palms.