Riptide (36 page)

More embers floated past like clouds of fireflies. Spot fires were breaking out. The rear of the house was starting to catch. She dared a glance toward the back door and saw sparks falling lazily onto the surrounding walls, setting the wallpaper aflame.

She had him out of the study now. She ran to the back door. Parkinson had left it unlocked. She tried to pull it open. It wouldn’t yield. She tugged harder at the knob, but the door remained stuck.

The heat must have warped the frame, wedging the door, sealing it shut. She couldn’t get it open. She couldn’t get out.

She turned to face the hallway, a tunnel of roaring flame.

Fear left her, and anger, and desperation. She saw how simple it was.

She was going to die here. It was how she’d always been meant to die. The house had wanted her all of these years. It had bided its time, and now at last it would claim her as its prize.

She returned to Casey, knelt by him. The heat was very bad. She wondered which would kill her first, heat or fumes or flames.

She hoped it wasn’t the flames. Burning to death—that was a bad way to go. But it didn’t matter.

“I tried, Casey,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

The door crashed open.

An inrush of air from outside, a shout of flame from the hall, and a hand grasping hers, pulling her to her feet.

Draper.

“
Go!”
he shouted.

The door leaned on broken hinges. He’d smashed it open with a chair from her patio, a piece of heavy cast iron lawn furniture.

When she glanced back, she saw him lifting Casey, hooking an arm around his waist and carrying him. It looked so easy.

He hauled Casey outside, joining her in the yard, while the house crackled and sputtered impotently behind them.

“Through the gate,” he yelled. “Out front!”

She wanted only to stop and rest in the coolness of the yard, but she knew the fire could reach them even here. If the fence started to burn, they would be trapped like penned animals.

She almost tripped over something at her feet. Her lawn mower, disassembled. Parkinson had taken the gas tank, used the fuel to feed the fire.

The gate came up before her, standing open—Draper had kicked it in, shattering the lock—and then she was in the front yard, on the sidewalk, collapsing by the curb, where Draper’s Crown Victoria was slant-parked, engine idling.

Some of her neighbors, newcomers she had never met, people who kept themselves hidden behind walls, were venturing into the street to watch the house burn. Sirens sounded, an ambulance or a fire engine. Across the street the evil Rottweiler howled in jubilation.

Draper arrived beside her, laying Casey on the lawn.

“He was hit on the head,” she managed to say.

The effort of speech cost her too much. She leaned forward, resting on one arm, and wheezed helplessly. She wondered how much smoke she’d inhaled, what her lungs looked like.

Her throat was horribly parched. She would have given anything for a drink of water, though she wasn’t sure she could keep it down.

“Hang on, Jen,” Draper said. “The paramedics are coming. They’ll get you and Casey to a hospital.”

But she didn’t want to go to a hospital. There was something she had to do, something important, if only she could remember what it was. She shut her eyes, and it came to her.

“Sandra Price.” Her voice was a croak.

Draper looked toward the house. “Is
she
in there too?”

She shook her head. “She’s the next victim.”

“He told you that?”

She nodded.

“Damn it.” Draper looked around uncertainly. “I have to intercept him. You wait here with Casey. The paramedics—”

“I’m not waiting.” She pushed herself upright. “I’m going with you.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Tough.”

She swayed a little as she made her way to Draper’s car. She climbed in on the passenger side, shutting the door with as much authority as she could muster.

“Hell.” Draper saw the futility of arguing. To the crowd he called out, “Anyone have medical training?”

“I know CPR,” one man ventured.

“Watch this officer till the EMTs arrive. Tell them he received a blow to the head and inhaled smoke.”

He slipped behind the wheel, slammed the sedan into gear, and accelerated.

Beside him, Jennifer struggled to gather her thoughts. “The killer—it’s not Richard.”

“It’s Parkinson. I know.”

“How?”

“I found some papers in Maura’s purse. She did some research downtown and took notes. Your house was originally owned—”

“By someone named Parkinson. That doesn’t explain how you knew I’d be at the house.”

“You weren’t at the station. No one knew where you’d gone, or Casey, either. The house was the first place I thought of.”

She released another flurry of coughs and spat up something into her palm. She checked it in the glow of a passing street light. The mucus was clear now, a good sign.

“He could be killing Sandra right now,” she said. “And we don’t even know where she is.”

“She’ll be at C.A.S.T. headquarters.”

“At this hour?”

“Their office is on the boardwalk. The March Festival is still going on. She always keeps her doors open late when there’s a crowd.”

That was true. Jennifer had seen it herself. “Will Parkinson know that?”

“Probably. He lives around here.”

“Does he?”

“A Venice native.”

Of course he was. He could never stray too far from his ancestral hunting ground.

“He’s armed,” she said. “He took Casey’s service pistol. Fired it three or four times. Right after I gouged his face.”

“Good for you.”

“Shouldn’t you call for backup?”

“Parkinson has a police radio. He’ll be monitoring the traffic. That must be how he knew we were at the Fortezza. If he hears the call go out, it’ll spook him. We don’t want him running. We need to end this now.”

Another coughing spell took hold of her, then subsided.

“Smoke inhalation is nothing to fool around with.” Draper sounded worried. “It can get a whole lot worse in a hurry.”

“I’m all right
.
”

She sank back in her seat. Her eyes burned. She wished she could douse her whole head in a basin of cool water.

“What was Casey doing there?” he asked.

“I thought I’d arranged a rendezvous with Richard. We were going to bring him in.”

“Why wasn’t I invited?”

She hesitated. “I didn’t want Richard hurt.”

“You mean, you were worried about that little squeeze play on the beach?”

“Not just that. Casey told me—well, he told me there have been civilian complaints.”

“No more than any cop gets.”

“And he said there was an incident of domestic abuse. You beat up your girlfriend.”

“Casey’s been talking out of school.”

“Look, you just saved my life. I’m not trying to cause trouble—”

“It’s okay. He’s right. I
did
hit her. I’d been with her for three years, and the whole time she swore up and down she was clean. Then one night I walk in on her and she’s got a fistful of coke up her nose. She’d been using, for months, behind my back. I lost it. Started yelling. She was high and crazy, and she came at me. So yeah, I hit her. Hard. Then she locked herself in a bedroom and called nine-one-one. By the time the unit arrived, she’d figured out she couldn’t press charges without copping to possession and assault. So she made up a story and the patrol guys went away. And I broke up with her.”

“I see.”

“There were better ways to handle it. I admit that. But she was violent and out of control. And she’d been lying to me. Playing me. I was pissed off. I don’t like being played.”

thirty-eight

Ocean Front Walk was a mad whirl. The crowd was larger than before. The wide concrete strip was packed with performers, spectators, vendors, beggars, scam artists, crazies.

Jennifer trailed Draper as he elbowed his way into the crush of bodies. Music blared from T-shirt shops and record stores. A folk guitarist competed with the din, wailing about riding the blue train. A fire eater plunged flaming shish kebabs down his throat. Jennifer looked away, the image bringing back the memory of her burning house. It must be ashes now.

They kept going, moving north. They passed a team of jugglers tossing knives. A midget on rollerblades. A man on stilts, dressed like a tree, shouting about global warming. An African drumming ensemble. An old man and his equally old dog, both riding skateboards. A harlequin figure, his costume festooned with jangling bells.

They were nearing a searchlight that illuminated a stream of giant bubbles rising toward the sky when a homeless man lurched out of the crowd. “Open-heart surgery!” he was yelling. He lifted his shirt to expose a mass of bandages. Jennifer pulled away before he could ask for money, and he disappeared in the swirl of people.

Moving on. An immensely fat woman tap-danced to a beat banged out by a monkey on a snare drum. A man in an Uncle Sam suit handed out fliers. Teens played a pickup basketball game under the lights. An inebriate of indeterminate sex threw up into a garbage can, then reared back and let loose a coyote howl.

Lights and noise and craziness, an insane carnival.

The C.A.S.T. headquarters lay just ahead, its banner visible above a faded storefront. The lights in the front windows were on and the door was open, but there was no movement inside.

Jennifer’s view was blocked for a moment by a band of aging hippies in troubadour getups, and then they had streamed past, and at the door of the office she spotted a figure in a hooded sweatshirt.

He’d appeared out of nowhere. He might be entering or leaving—she couldn’t tell.

Draper broke into a sprint, drawing his gun.

Parkinson turned. Saw them.

Then he was running in the familiar awkward lope, his shoes pounding the concrete.

They gave chase. Parkinson weaved through the crowd, knocking down a man on a unicycle, sidestepping a crowd of sullen teenagers.

A big man in a Malcolm X shirt obstructed Draper’s progress. Draper pushed him aside, and the man pushed back, shouting, “What the fuck?” Draper showed him his gun. The guy backed off.

And Parkinson was gone.

“Where’d he go?” Draper yelled.

Jennifer, panting at his side, shook her head.

Draper started running again, Jennifer behind him, trying to keep pace. The crowd thinned. Shops and vendors’ stalls gave way to decrepit apartment buildings lining the landward side of the promenade.

Draper stopped at a break in the row of buildings, peering down an alley.

Parkinson must have gone in there. It was the only exit.

“This time,” Draper hissed, “you stay
back
.”

He stepped into the alley and took out a pocket flashlight. The beam explored the passageway, long and narrow, bracketed by windowless brick walls. Along one wall stood clumps of oleander and trash bins overflowing with debris. The opposite wall was lined with rusted bicycle parts and corrugated boxes. At the far end a chicken-wire fence screened off a parking lot.

Parkinson could have scaled the fence, if he had the strength. Or he might be concealed inside a trash bin or among the cardboard boxes.

Jennifer watched Draper creep down the middle of the alley, his flash ticking from side to side, and for a surreal moment he wasn’t an LAPD officer anymore. He was a bobby in Jack the Ripper’s London, exploring one of Whitechapel’s back lanes with his bull’s-eye lantern. He was the constable who’d come across Frances Coles in February of 1891, arriving so soon after the killer had done his work that he could hear Jack’s retreating footsteps. He was Inspector Abberline hunting Edward Hare in the sooty labyrinth of East End, where life was cheaper than gin.

So little had changed. Even the victims’ names were nearly the same.

Draper was halfway down the alley. There was no movement but his steady forward progress, no sound but his footfalls on asphalt.

His flashlight swept the ground along the rear fence, where some sort of tarpaulin lay discarded. The tarp was not flat against the ground. It bulged in irregular places.

Parkinson could be underneath.

Draper paused, the flashlight beam picking out the tarp only for a moment before traveling on. If his quarry was there, Draper didn’t want him to know he’d been discovered.

Jennifer stood on the threshold of the alley, watching Draper’s slow advance, thinking of constables in the East End, and Hare on the prowl, and prostitutes unsexed and gutted, their throats cut as they were grabbed from behind....

From behind.