Behold the Child Page 4

  “Loud and clear.”

  “Good. Now get out of my way.”

  Kenzie was done in five. He paused by administration to file a request for full reinstatement. Then he drove to an overpriced Seattle coffee store and sat alone at a back table, reading the contents of the file.

  On Memorial Day, Marco Hernandez, aged eight, ran into a cluster of trees in the public park at Whitsett and Moorpark in Studio City, wearing a striped tee shirt and blue-jean shorts. He never came back. Six days later, Consuelo Alonzo of Van Nuys, a pert little girl in a yellow dress and a ribbon in her hair, vanished while wandering through the toy section of a K-Mart store with her mother. She was five years old. Margaret Williams, six, from the school parking lot. Bobby Jackson, eight, from a playground. Tommy Jacobson, eight, from his own front yard. Different parts of the Valley, different ages and races and times of day. No discernable pattern, no demands for ransom; not one child ever heard from again.

  Until now.

  Kenzie looked around self-consciously, but no one was close enough to see what he was reading. He looked like any harried businessman going over some boring sales reports while stealing a coffee break.

  The crime scene and autopsy photographs were ghastly. Kenzie had rarely seen such butchery. There were also photographs of the various designs and letters scrawled on the walls in human excrement, but they made no sense. One of his questions was answered immediately. The DNA tests done on the tissue samples and pieces of excrement had shown them to be from several different people, probably the children themselves. Kenzie squinted, because the photographs had been reduced in size, but was able to make out what appeared to be a figure eight on its side and a few capital letters from the English alphabet. Something tickled his brain, but Kenzie couldn’t bring the instinct into focus.

  He hid the folder under the front seat of his car and drove home, whistling along with the radio. For the first time in months, he felt happy; glad to be sober and ready to go back to work. Laura’s black Ford wagon was in the driveway; she was already home from her doctor’s appointment. Kenzie locked his car and trotted up the steps, still whistling.

  “Laura?”

  He found her in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet with the lid down. She was frowning in concentration, as if painting her toenails were the most important task ever assigned a human being. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her makeup had run, giving her a smeared raccoon visage. Kenzie felt his stomach scar throb and writhe. He knelt down next to the bowl.

  “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  Laura poked her tongue out to one side, like a small child who is unconcerned about how she may appear to others. “I’m busy right now,” she said.

  Kenzie touched her leg with his fingertips. The human contact broke down her walls. Laura’s eyes brimmed and spilled over and she trembled and shook.

  “Laura, what is it? Are you sick?”

  “He said I can’t,” she whispered. “Not now, not ever.”

  “Can’t what?”

  And then it hit him. Laura had been dropping hints for weeks, hoping he’d pick up the thread and run with it. The Andersons are expecting, she’d say. And they’re as old as we are. Can you believe that?

  “We can’t have children.” He said it calmly, as a statement of fact, and was surprised to find a parallel sadness growing deep inside. “It’s too late?”

  “Oh, Sam, it’s not just that we waited so long. It was the abortion I had when you got shot. Somebody fouled up somehow, and now I can’t have a child. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to, but now that I don’t even have a choice, it hurts!”

  She melted into his arms and he rocked her. After a time, Sam Kenzie cried a few tears of his own. Out of sympathy for Laura, for his own lost opportunities, even for the lonely old man he was certain to become.

  8.

  The house had been painted, and quite recently; it was now gray with white trim. Someone had pulled the weeds and replaced them with strips of grass straight from Home Depot. Lines of dirt still separated one new planting from the next. A few perennials dotted the flowerbed and a FOR RENT sign stood next to the dented mailbox. Kenzie pulled his car to the curb, next to the trashcans. The neighborhood was still, yet in his mind the windshield exploded and the whole nightmare started all over again, with Oso’s voice chanting: I can’ stand the pain, ese and then I poke death, man.

  Sam Kenzie closed his eyes and willed his breathing to slow. Now that he was actually here again, he found the anxiety almost overwhelming. He resisted the urge to take out his gun. He got his flashlight, stepped out, stood by the car and looked around the neighborhood. A light was on in the house across the alley. A small boy with large brown eyes peered at him through a bedroom window until someone yanked the child away and closed the blinds.

  Kenzie approached the house. His footsteps crunched through the gravel and scooted along the newly planted grass. When he got to the foot of the steps and stood where he had first decided to enter the house, his nerve deserted him. He had to fight the urge to run away. After a long moment, he ran the beam through the window and looked around. His breath fogged the brand new pane of glass.

  As he’d expected, the inside had been cleaned up, painted and then painted again. The carpets were cheap, but new. Kenzie debated picking the lock, but elected to walk around to the back yard instead. Somewhere to the south a dog began to bark and growl. Another joined in, then another, all in syncopated rhythm.

  Kenzie wasn’t even sure what he was looking for. He knew the house would be different, now, and that the San Bernardino police would have picked it clean of evidence. He just needed to be here, just in case they had missed something. He wandered through the back yard, playing the beam of light around, until he was satisfied that virtually everything that could have been of use to him had already been sold, straightened up, painted over or removed. He had an absurd urge to break in to the house and stand right where he’d been shot, as if that would cure something; perhaps make him feel a little less afraid I can’t stand the pain, ese, but he decided to leave well enough alone and started back towards the car.

  A large dog snarled and ran into a chain link fence, less than fifteen feet away, and Kenzie jumped. He dropped the flashlight in alarm and reached for his automatic. But the sounds told him the animal was on a choke chain and on the other side of both a wooden slat and chain link barrier. His body trembled from adrenaline. Kenzie sighed and reached down for the flashlight, which had fallen on the cement near the crawlspace beneath the home.

  His skin crawled and the short hairs at the back of his neck came to attention. He reached into his pocket for the small, disposable flash camera. Scratched into one tiny cement square was a small figure eight, resting on its side; just like the one he’d seen, scrawled in human excrement, in those police photographs from the crime scene in Van Nuys.

  9.

  “Is this a Mobius strip?” They were sitting in Laura’s home office. She had reading glasses perched on the end of her nose as she studied the enlarged image on her computer screen. She had scanned and magnified it.

  “A Mobius strip? Sure, you could say that. It is also called Ourabouris, or the snake that eats its tail. This is recognized the world over as a sign signifying eternity.”

  “So it has spiritual significance?”

  “In some cultures, certainly it does,” Laura said. She went online, typed a command into her computer and the design popped up. She pointed. “See? Here it is in Aztec mythology. But this is also a sign used in various kinds of advanced mathematics, also in science. Hell, even some Buddhist worshipers form their beads that way. I’m afraid this is not the direct clue you seem to have been hoping for.”

  Kenzie nodded. He had expected as much. He kissed her cheek. “Thanks anyway, honey,” he said.

  “What’s this all about, Sam?”

  Kenzie kept his voice casual. “Oh, it’s nothing, really. Some kids who vandalized a Beemer they stole left it sprayed on the window. I was ho
ping the sign meant something we could trace back to them, that’s all.”

  Laura shrugged. “Maybe it is some kind of new gang thing.”

  “Maybe.”

  Laura smiled up at him, her eyes seductive. “Feel like fooling around tonight?”

  Kenzie didn’t, but forced a grin. “Sure thing.”

  “By the way, did you see the mail?” She handed him three letters. The look on her face said she was pleased. “You got two out three, honey. And someone sent an offer all on their own. That’s pretty damned good.”

  “Oh. That’s nice.”

  “You don’t seem very happy.”

  “I guess I’d better look them over. Are we going out?”

  “We’ve got meat loaf left over. Should I heat it up?”

  “Okay.”

  The first offer was from National City, California. The salary and benefits were decent, but Laura had already written “no” in the margins. She had done some research online and found that the local housing prices were out of reach. Kenzie felt relieved. He grinned when he saw that the second offer was from his hometown of Twin Forks, Nevada. It was signed by a Sheriff Harris, who was retiring, and a rancher who was a member of the city council, one Klaus Wachner. And incredibly, Wachner was offering to contribute a three-bedroom home he owned on the outskirts of Twin Forks, free of charge, providing Kenzie promised to pay for utilities. His letter was akin to a Valentine; Wachner had read about their home town boy, the great Detective Kenzie, and his fine work with the LAPD. He said they simply had to have him in town, serving the fine citizens of Twin Forks, blah blah blah.

  A ticket home, where he was still apparently a hero? And free housing, decent money along with the title of Sheriff? Not bad. Not bad at all.

  Too bad Kenzie had absolutely no intention of retiring.

  10.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”

  Captain Kramer was clearly frustrated, and perhaps feeling a bit guilty. He threw the Los Angeles magazine down on the desk and jabbed a nicotine-stained finger at the photograph of Kenzie gracing its front cover. The garish log-line read: COWBOY COP CRACKS CHILD CASE, KILLER OR HERO?

  “Have you seen this?”

  Kenzie shrugged, went for a cheap laugh. “I’ve looked better.”

  “Sam, this isn’t funny,” Kramer said. “And it has just enough truth in it to have pissed off every politician in town. The chief isn’t happy. The article makes the department look like a bunch of circus clowns, and you the next Dirty Harry. It’s a PR disaster.”

  “I’m sorry, boss. I didn’t call them back or cooperate in any way. I don’t know where they got their information.”

  “It’s a little late to apologize.” The statement was heavily weighted, and Kramer did not meet his eyes.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You got too much heat on you, Sam. That’s all there is too it.”

  “I’m out?”

  “You’re out.”

  Kenzie shook his head slowly. “I’m one of the best cops you’ve got and you know it, Captain. Hell, I just took a dead investigation and kicked it alive again. I deserve better than this.”

  “Yeah, you probably do. And I’m grateful for the stuff you dug up on how those two cases tie together.”

  “You damn well ought to be. Those dope-dealing bastards were funneling kidnapped children to a serial killer.”

  “Look, I know it, Sam. With what you gave us we tied together nearly thirty child murders in four western states and we’ll put some of those gang members away for life. More importantly, whatever this mysterious child killer was up to, you have now most assuredly dropped a turd in his swimming pool. We may not know who he is yet, but he’s got to be feeling the heat.”

  “I did my job.”

  “And probably saved some lives.”

  “And now you’re firing me for it.”

  Kramer reddened. “That’s because you did it when you were supposed to be following up on stolen cars. The chief doesn’t like cowboy shit like that and neither does IAD.”

  “Fuck them.”

  “No, Sam, this time it’s fuck you.”

  Kenzie kicked the chair. He knew he was being juvenile, but he was unable to stop himself. “You know something, Cap? IAD can kiss my Irish ass.”

  “You want to tell them that?”

  “I ought to. Cops shouldn’t mess with cops.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ear,” Kramer snarled. “Welcome to the real world, Kenzie. You know the score. Parker Center doesn’t give a damn about what you’ve done for the department in the past. Right now, you’re just a liability.”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “You’re on an extended rest leave, with reduced pay.”

  Kenzie was stunned all over again. “Even after what I just contributed to that case, Cap?”

  “That’s it.”

  “I can’t come back to work.”

  “Nope. Now sit down.”

  Kramer sat down heavily, his face grim. Cap Kramer grimaced and rubbed his temples, like a man growing a brutal headache. “Off the record, Sam. You want to hear it straight up?”

  Kenzie nodded. “Sure.”

  “Greenburg, the shrink?”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “No, he liked you Sam. He thinks you’re a damned good cop and said so in his report. But he also said that you might become a ‘loose cannon,’ because of your abusive childhood, and that the department should keep a close watch on you. He probably meant well, but that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

  “And so?”

  “So I think it would be best if you put in for an early retirement. The Chief is willing to pull a few strings, maybe get some disability thrown in along with the lowered pension and benefits package, but only if you retire.”

  “Shit.”

  “Oh, come on Sam. You can’t be all that surprised. Two suspects dead, a little girl got killed and you got your guts shot out. Then you embarrass the department by doing something else off duty that opens a new file on a big case. That’s a publicity disaster of the first order. What did you think would happen?”

  “I don’t know, Cap,” Kenzie answered, honestly. “I just wanted to come back to work again, that’s all.”

  Kramer lowered his voice a bit. “Did you follow my advice? Send a few copies of your resume out of state?”

  “Yeah,” Kenzie said, absently. “And I put you down as my reference.” He sat back in the metal folding chair, surprised and close to tears. He felt like he’d just been given a death sentence. “I already got an offer from my one-horse home town in Nevada. They think I’ve made them famous.”

  Captain Kramer smiled reassuringly. “Sounds nice and quiet.”

  “Don’t do this, Cap.” Kenzie pleaded with his eyes. “Help me out here.”

  “Can’t do it, Sam. We all have to hang it up sometime, right? If these Nevada people call me, I won’t mention a word about IAD or the downside of that shoot. I’ll just give you a rave review.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hell, Sam, it’s not so bad.”

  “Oh, it’s not, huh?”

  Kramer grinned. “Hey, look at it this way. You are going to go back to the desert and be near the mountains. You can go fishing and hunting all you want, screw the old lady all night while you collect a nice pension with benefits, and just to keep from getting bored you can sit by some highway handing out parking tickets.”

  “And nobody shoots at me any more, either.”

  “Exactly.”

  Kenzie shrugged. “Sounds terrible, you ask me. Now I know why so many retired guys just open a bar or eat a fucking piece.”

  “God damn it, Kenzie, don’t even joke about that.” Kramer was feeling touchy about the subject of suicide. Lou Fields, an old friend of his from Vice, had just checked out that way. He’d tied a string to his foot, placed a shotgun by the bowl and shot himself in a motel bathroom.

  “Sorry, Cap,” Kenzie sa
id. He wasn’t.

  O’Halloran’s was mobbed when Kenzie got there. The cops he knew took one look at the expression on his face and gave him a wide berth. Kenzie’s face burned with shame. They knew. In fact, they had all probably known for weeks, if not months, that he was toast. Kenzie couldn’t blame them; he’d been part of the gossip mill too, in his time. He was going down for the count, career over and lights out. Nobody wanted his bad luck to rub off on them.

  He started with a ‘depth charge,’ a shot of Jack Daniels whiskey dropped into a tall mug of draught beer. The booze lit a pilot light in his diaphragm, poof an instant dot of warmth. Kenzie ordered another shot and a mug, and the world started to get rosier still. But as the soothing chemicals flooded his brain, Bob Young walked by and slapped him on the back as he left; a macho sign of unspoken respect. Moments later, Paul Little and Rich Martinson did the same thing. Time passed, and one after another the active duty guys shook his hand or slapped him on the back as they went home. Kenzie began to seethe; in fact, the injustice of his situation soon became almost unbearable, but he knew there wasn’t one damned thing he could do about it.

  Things became a blur after that. Someone challenged Kenzie to a chugging match. He won, but by then he could barely walk, so he started building a bar sculpture made of lightly burned swizzle sticks. Later, Kenzie threw up in the alley. He called home to tell Laura not to wait up. He promised her that he wouldn’t drink and drive. After that, things got really sketchy. Somehow the remaining cops took it upon themselves to throw Kenzie an impromptu going-away party. O’Halloran locked the bar at 2:00 AM so they could keep on drinking. The bartender called some of the single guys, woke them up and ordered them to come back and join the free-for-all.

  Around three in the morning, a couple of guys from Vice picked up some working girls they knew and drove them over. Kenzie was now passed out, face-down on the floor. The boys decided he deserved a farewell blowjob. They took up a collection and dragged Kenzie and the youngest girl into the back room. They closed the door to give them a little privacy. Someone put on a collection of 1980’s rock music and cranked the volume to the max.